very serious issues facing the military as we all know over the weekend we read about the Marine Corps photo sharing issue and its ongoing investigation and what we've learned is certainly very disturbing and utterly disrespectful I understand Sergeant Major Green will address the issue in his remarks so I'd like to give him an opportunity to do so none of us obviously will tolerate such behavior and I appreciate the Department of Defense is taking this issue as seriously as all of us on the subcommittee are and now at this time I'd like to recognize our distinguished ranking member from Florida Ms. Wasserman Scholes for opening remarks. Thank You Mr. Chairman. I look forward to working with you and all the members of the subcommittee to ensure that our active duty service members and veterans receive the care they deserve and that they need and that they're supported in every way possible but first I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge my colleague and friend from Georgia Congressman Sanford Bishop who served in a distinguished capacity when he chaired and served as the ranking member of this subcommittee and recently stepped down to move over to be the ranking member of the Agriculture Appropriations subcommittee so thank you thank you for your service. He has really exercised extraordinary leadership and commitment to the members of armed services. Mr. Chairman I also want to welcome our guest today Sergeant Major Daly and Sergeant Major Green as well as congratulate Master Chief Jordan and Chief Master Sergeant Wright on their new roles. I'm confident that all of you will do extremely well and I look forward to working with you. These four witnesses before us today are well positioned to convey the views and needs of our enlisted men and women. Mr. Chairman since I became the ranking member of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs subcommittee I've had numerous discussions about strategy facilities and equipment as I know you have. We are all well aware of the vast technological superiority held by our nation's military but the true backbone of the US Armed Forces is formed by the ranks of the enlisted. It is vital that we pay heed to their well-being and guarantee their optimal readiness. Additionally let us not forget that when a service member deploys he or she is not the only one making an incredible sacrifice for this nation. In fact many spouses manage the household by themselves in some cases a relative has to step up and help when both parents are deployed. It is therefore vital that we ensure our soldiers well-being and address the needs of their families. Today we are here to listen. As a member of the subcommittee I want to make sure that we're doing enough to help our service members and their families. The last thing they need to worry about when they're at war is what is going on back at home. In all of your written testimonies you raised many issues that confront your services such as family support services, recruitment retention, pay and compensation, childcare, and transition.   In every office call this issue was raised and while I'm pleased that this is on all of your radars there remains much to be done about this extremely serious and disturbing problem. This weekend several news outlets reported the Department of Defense is investigating hundreds of Marines who use social media to solicit and share hundreds possibly thousands of naked photographs of women's service members and veterans. According to one article since January 30th numerous women on active duty both officers and enlisted in some cases identified by their rank full name and military duty station have had their photographs posted and linked to a private Facebook page with 30,000 members. This is deeply disturbing and absolutely unacceptable to say the least especially given that this is happening less than two months after the first Marine Infantry Unit was assigned women on January 5th. Unfortunately this situation is not unique and only further underscores persistent a persistent culture of sexual harassment and risk of sexual assault within our military ranks that threatens the recruitment and retention of women's service members. Again this is unacceptable and moreover unsustainable and I hope that you will address the serious matter with the committee today each of you and how you plan to respond to this incident as well as how you will continue to make the armed services a safe place for all Americans to serve regardless of gender sexual orientation race religion or any other identity. As you can see we have many important issues to discuss I believe this hearing was a great opportunity to identify those crucial areas where we can do more to improve on the quality of life that our men and women who are serving enjoy in the military. Thank you for your service and I yield back the balance of my time. Thank you. Miss Wilderman Scholes for your comments and your remarks. Our witnesses today are Sergeant Major of the Army Daniel Daley should note from Pomerton Pennsylvania just outside of my hometown. Sergeant Major Daley is returning as returning witness his wife Holly is also in attendance as is their son and I should note for the record that his son and my son are both juniors at Penn State and getting their engineering education and they're working very hard and they're under a lot of stress and so I'm really appreciative they took time to come down today. Sergeant Major Daley was sworn in as a 15th Sergeant Major on the January 30th 2015 28 years of service and listed in the Army in 1989 attended basic training advanced individual training at Fort Penn in Georgia. Sergeant Major Daley's awards include the Legion of Merit and Bronze Star Medal with Valor. We also have before us today Chief Master Petty Officer of the Navy Stephen Giordano. Master Chief Giordano is a first-time witness his wife Elka is here there you are Elka is also again in attendance she's the Navy's on Budsman at large for the Chief of Naval for the CNO Chief Naval Operations appointed on September 2nd 2016 becoming the 14th Master Chief Petty Officer 28 years of service again enlisted in the Navy 1989 also served as a force master chief for Navy information dominance forces and fleet master chief for US Naval Forces Europe US Naval Forces Africa. He's designated a specialist in submarine surface and information warfare so thank you Master Chief for being here again Sergeant Major Green of the Marine Corps again he's a returning witness his wife Andrea is also in attendance Andrea oh she's not here I thought she was I'm sorry and Sergeant Major Green assumed his current post as the 18th Sergeant Major Marine Corps on February 20th 2015 34 years of service attended attend recruit training at the Marine Corps recruit depot Paris Island South Carolina in 1983 he's also served as drill sergeant master sergeant at Paris Island he's also served as served at two three star commands a rare distinction for the rank he served the Marine Corps forces Europe and Africa and Stuttgart Germany in 2010 we also have force for the first time Chief Master Sergeant the Air Force Kailas Wright Chief Master Sergeant Wright is a again a first-time witness his wife Tanya is Tanya Tanya is here and an in attendance also should note that she is from the Great City of Johnstown Pennsylvania so you know what flooding is all about sadly and and she's also I believe also retired Army also retired Air Force appointed in February 17 20 February's appointed in February 17 2017 is the 18th Chief Master Sergeant 28 years of service enlist in the Air Force 1989 his background includes various duties in dental career field and served as a professional military education instructor prior to assuming his current position he was a Command Chief Master Sergeant US Air Forces in Europe and US Air Forces Africa so thank you all for taking the time to be here without objection your written statements will be entered in the record so please feel free to summarize your marks in about five minutes each and so we will start with a Sergeant Major Sergeant Major Daley of the Army Chairman Dent ranking member Washman Schultz distinguished members of this committee thank you for the opportunity to update you on the quality of life of our soldiers and our Army today I am joined by my wife Holly but I'm also joined by the rest of the Army team Command Sergeant Major Chris Kepner of the Army National Guard is here and a representative of the Army Reserve a proud representative of the entire Army is our NC over the year Sergeant First Class Mowler and on behalf of over 1 million soldiers and their families we would like to thank this committee for the work you have done to ensure that they have the necessary resources to fight and win we ask that Congress continues to make military readiness a top priority as they did last year with the National Defense Authorization Act not only did you address readiness with the end strength but you restored support for our soldiers and families by authorizing their largest pay raise in five years the last time I testified before this committee our Army was well underway with four structure cuts but today we're growing increasing by additional 28,000 soldiers across three components does present a challenge but rest assured it will be accomplished without degradation of readiness after visiting and talking with thousands of soldiers and families over the past year I believe their quality of life is okay if you want to continue to retain and attract quality people under the current and strength of our all volunteer force we must continue sustainment efforts as was the case in last year's Congress everywhere I visit I'm inspired by the resiliency of soldiers and their families the things we ask of them however is not commensurate with the quality of life that they have been given frankly it never will be but we can certainly provide better than we do right now the long-term term impact is what is concerning if we continue to be placed in positions where we must choose benefits or training we will certainly lose out on quality and talent down the road fiscal uncertainty will result in loss of confidence in our institution and you ultimately degrade our ability to retain and recruit this includes appropriations for equipment training and manpower but also includes a consistent predictable budget that supports benefits and services throughout the entire soldier lifecycle recruit retain transition and veteran status the impact extends beyond our current force and continues to reap benefits when soldiers transition out of the army and into civilian life veterans influence the people in our communities that influence shapes perceptions and confidence which undoubtedly affects the quality of recruits we receive and the talent we are able to retain our latest attempt at education reform in our army is credentialing assistance I'm asking you for your help in this effort because it impacts every aspect of the soldier lifecycle and our society not just the military for years we have providing our soldiers with world-class training and education much of which already directly translates to civilian occupations and by providing our soldiers with access to additional self-directed credentialing and certification opportunities while in service we can help fill the gaps that exist in our nation's workforce bring more contributing members of society into your districts and put veterans to work our soldiers have engaged in combat operations for over 15 consecutive years yet public perception often is that we are not a nation at war with more than 180,000 soldiers in 140 countries preventing shaping and winning for our nation our soldiers are in high demand this is why our number one priority has and always will continue to be readiness we know very well what is expected of our army we will maintain professionals who are accountable and respectable initiatives and policies such as not my squad sexual assault prevention gender integration and religious accommodations are just some of the examples of how we will affect appropriate change in our military culture filling army formations with soldiers of character competence and commitment soldiers who are mentally emotionally and physically fit to withstand the rigors required of members of the professions of arms is not a responsibility that I the chief or the secretary take lightly if we are to maintain an all quality volunteer force we must focus on sustainment of the force we have right now the current levels of compensation benefits and operational tempo it's what soldiers today have come to expect what we have to do now is focus on sustainment and to avoid policies that degrade that readiness having a military is a requirement for the nation but it is a choice by individuals therefore we must ensure our actions and decisions reinforce the message that we are behind our professional volunteer force these actions and decisions must always reinforce the message that we will support our soldiers and families at work and home I am confident with the help of Congress our army will always be ready to assure deter and defend the American people and our way of life thank you for your time I look forward to your questions thank you very much Sergeant Major right on time to and that we turn the Navy Master Chief Giudano thank you Chairman Chairman Dent Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz and distinguished members of the committee it's an absolute privilege to appear before you today on behalf of the sailors and the families of the United States Navy and as mentioned with me today is my wife Elka who currently serves as our Navy ombudsman at large it's been six months since I assume the duties as the 14th Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy and I serve as the senior enlisted advisor to the Chief of Naval Operations on all matters pertaining to our sailors and their families and I've been honored and humbled to serve alongside these motivated men and women and witness their bravery and compassion day in and day out they're determined in their duty and motivated in their action their unquestioned devotion to our nation and our Navy is reflected in their performance every day with quiet and unassuming courage and tenacity these great Americans defend our nation its freedoms and national security interest around the globe in every theater of operation I believe our sailors are the Navy's competitive edge that sets us apart from our competitors ensuring our sailors and their families are taken care of guarantees our Navy maintains maritime superiority and readiness providing them the ability to vote their full attention and capabilities to the mission at hand is an important factor in successfully executing our design for maintaining maritime superiority specifically our line of effort to strengthen our Navy team for the future through the years and with your support we have made great strides in ensuring our sailors and their families are provided for and for that we are grateful however as military forces around the globe strive to surpass us in the maritime domain it is of great importance for our sailors to continue to maintain their focus on the mission and sustain the competitive edge we have always maintained without our sailors our Navy cannot reach the optimal state of readiness we require in order to continue to be number one concern for the stability and welfare of home is never far from our sailors minds and while we have many programs in place designed to help with the vigors of Navy life work remains to be done and although budgetary reform continues to exist our sailors and their families continue to be very understanding the Navy remains steadfast in delivering the highest quality of service to our recruits and training and retaining our best sailors if we ensure the families of our service members are taken care of we better deliver properly trained and focus sailors with the right skill sets to the fleet ours is a life of hardship and we must do what we can to manage it in order to keep our sailors focused on their jobs satisfied with their service and comfortable in knowing their families are stable stressors that distract from our sailors professions deprive them and their families of the peace of mind required to carry out the Navy's missions the more secure our sailors feel in the knowledge their families and loved ones are cared for during their absence the more our Navy and our nation will benefit while traveling around the fleet I continue to see the sacrifices and stresses placed upon them one of the concerns I have seen is the permanent change of station lead times the expectations we said on our sailors and their families are high and when we asked them to move from place to place you know and although this is manageable to many however when the lead times are short notice this becomes an increased stressor in their families lives in the households this place is a significant distraction on our sailors and the ultimate and ultimately made negatively impact our competitive edge in our continuous efforts to maintain maintain maritime superiority in line with my permanent change of station lead team times it is also my concern for child care center accessibility to the family members child care center wait times continue to be of challenge specifically in fleet concentration areas these these forces are sailors to be exposed to high cost of daycare centers and local populace and have to deal with yet another stressor in their lives lastly in our efforts to care for our sailors their families and livelihood credentialing is also a concern our sailor serve in the most strenuous environments are able to perform at a top-notch level they should not have to have any issues in performing the same duties in the civilian sector however they are always set back in their civilian career goals having to get accredited for the same profession they have experience and expertise in I discuss these in more detail in my written testimony I'm happy to go over any concerns you have regarding strengthening our Navy for the future quality of life initiatives and the fiscal constraints that impact our sailors the most important component of our Navy is our sailors we must never forget the sacrifices and their families make every day to protect our nation ensure safe passage throughout the world's oceans and provide humanitarian assistance globally on behalf of all sailors I welcome the opportunity to speak with you about them and offer my thanks for your unwavering commitment and dedication to providing the necessary resources that ensure we remain the world's preeminent maritime force thank you thank you master chief appreciate those comments now we turn to Marine Corps Sergeant Major Green Chairman Dent ranking member Watson and Schultz and distinguished members of Congress thank you once again for the opportunity to appear to appear before you today and provide an update of quality of life for your Marine Corps the Marine Corps continues to remain its operational readiness and commitment to the nation remaining forward deployed and ready to respond to crisis anywhere in the world your Corps remains ready when the nation is least ready we recruit 30,000 Marines a year and 30,000 Marines exit the Marine Corps every year the average age is 25 65 percent of the Marine Corps is 25 or younger 56 million Marine Corps are single our comprehensive comprehensive package packages of programs and services seek the holistic fitness and readiness while Marines and families if you ask me what you can do for us as a Corps today I would tell you fiscal certainty the fiscal situation over the past few years coupled with the drawdown has caused some some of the highest quality Marines to walk away from the Corps with their families in my humble opinion we've accepted too much risk in hometown station units and programs that support readiness for personnel and family programs we're absolutely grateful for the 3000 plus up in the FDA of 2017 however without the resources to pay for them that means absolutely nothing because we'll pay for them off the 16 budget as a core we we sometimes find our core values tested by the poor conduct of the small number who haven't accepted the transformation today is such a day we absolutely denounce the actions of any Marine presently serving whether active reserve or veteran that go against our core values of honor courage and commitment we tout the slogan wants a Marine always a Marine therefore we're all responsible for protecting those warriors who come to serve their country and protect our way of life actions that disrespect fellow Marines do not represent our core values nor do they enhance our combat effectiveness instead such conduct tears away at the very very fibers of unique cohesion our families and most of all the trust that sustains us on the battlefield and brings us together as a band of brothers and sisters we will continue to police our ranks search our policies update our policies and do everything we can to make sure that families our Marines and everyone that serves under the EU global anchor are taking care of and treated with dignity and respect we're all a part of the solution or the problem I can assure you that the majority of Marines both past and present value our ethos and work hard daily to make sure that they're living the core values of honor courage and commitment again thank you very much for opportunity to represent our warriors and families and I look forward to your questions thank thank you sergeant major now I move to the Air Force and master sergeant right chairman Dent ranking member of Washington Schultz and members of this subcommittee thank you for your continued support of our servicemen and women and congressman bishops or as a native of Columbus Georgia personally honored to meet someone who has served so honorably representing my home state so many of my formative years so thank you it's an honor to address you all for the first time express our airmen's needs and offer appreciation for your support on behalf of them and their families the ultimate source of airspace and cyberspace combat capability resides in the men and women of the United States Air Force we owe it to our nation airmen and global partners to provide a ready and resilient force our airmen and families are key to our success our job is to support and defend America's way of life defend our national interests and when necessary fight and win our nation's wars it's a challenging task which is why focusing on our airmen and their families is crucial across to the defense department cost savings need to be tempered excuse me we must put them first as they face the challenges inherent in serving in the profession of arms we continue to explore opportunities to strengthen our force while some initiatives are force-wide others are more targeted but all have the same objective to provide commanders with the most well-trained deliberately developed airmen and the most resilient airmen and families part of the fiscal year 17 National Defense Authorization Act considers potential changes to our airmen's compensation specifically in the form of basic allowance for housing the regressive nature of the proposed legislation effectively removes BAH as a part of regular military compensation which could severely limit our ability to recruit and retain our airmen this new reverse nearly 20 years of deliberate legislative action to ensure service members are appropriately compensated for their service and that their salaries remain competitive with private sector professionals while we remain mindful of current budget pressures across the defense department cost savings need to be tempered by the need to retain our talent which is truly a national asset to meet global demands resource emerging requirements and repair and sustain the force the Air Force must increase its active duty in strength up to 321,000 by the end of 200 of 2017 the Air Force will consider in strength increases as it works with the Secretary of Defense to develop the FY 2018 President's budget but we must remain measured and cautious in how fast we grow to force to ensure readiness and not further hollow our Air Force as we regrow the force we must do so in an efficient stable manner by employing increased accession and expanded retention programs the Air Force will preserve the A-10 and EC-130 capabilities while continuing to build the F-35 force increase maintenance capacity and retain critical experience to improve readiness successful execution of our force management plan requires focused effort to ensure critical resources are available in a timely manner in the recruiting accession and training pipelines we're sourcing additional military training instructors at Air Force basic military training as well as additional technical training instructors for initial skills training to support increased recession accession targets ready resilient installations are a critical component of Air Force operations unfortunately 25 years of continuous combat a fiscal environment constrained by the budget controlled act and a complex security environment have limited our ability to sufficiently invest in our infrastructure we have no choice but to invest in vital modernization efforts since 2000 and with general support of Congress the Air Force funded 125 milcon projects totaling 855 million dollars for child development and fitness centers this represents a significant investment to improve readiness and the quality of life for our airmen but requirements still remain we have an additional 125.8 million dollars in projects to recapitalize BMT infrastructure again this committee's support is vital to that success I am joined today by my wife Tanya a 20 year Air Force veteran herself command chief master sergeant of the Air National Guard Ronald Anderson and command chief master sergeant for the Air Force Reserve Command Erica Kelly together we visited thousands of airmen and family members we've listened to their concerns and seeing firsthand the impact the current environment has had on our force I thank you for your tremendous support and look forward to the opportunity to answer any questions that you may have thank you thank you master sergeant that's sergeant right appreciate that and thank you all for your comprehensive statements and testimony today sergeant major rena I appreciate your comments too about the need for fiscal certainty and stability that's a that's certainly an obligation to be on this committee take very seriously need to do a better job of so thank you for that those comments I think I'll start this questioning with the one perennial question I always ask at this hearing I'll ask each of you to try to state this as briefly as you can what would you say are the top three quality life concerns a enlisted of the enlisted personnel in each of your branches just go right down the line if we could start with the sergeant sergeant daily sir with regards to quality of life I think it has to be looked at from a total force perspective and I think that's consistent with chief staff the army's priorities which are consistent with my priorities and that is first and foremost we got to build readiness and that is directly related to quality of life second is we got to be cogs into the future of the army and that's from all aspects from modernization to making sure that we have our home stations and bases prepared to be able to support our soldiers and families as they're deployed and then lastly is the the soldiers and families providing them with the necessary tools and means to be able to maintain a good quality of life because we're asking a lot of our young soldiers service members now and that toll is consistent with deployment rates that were we saw in 2007 and 2008 so say that was my top three priorities yes sir mr chairman you know I would say that these concerns are kind of you know secondary tertiary effect of a bigger issue that you mentioned in referring back to sergeant major green statement which is the environment in financial environment that we live in today there's a profound effect and all these things that I talk about as we talk about stability and predictability for our sailors and their families and top concerns as I mentioned in my statement this this permanent change of station lead time and getting better in that regard to provide more upfront time for our our sailors and their families to prepare accordingly for those movements across the globe associated with that of course is that child care availability in the locations that the five families find themselves and finally the the mobility and opportunity for our spouses to find employment in the locations more easily than they do today both in the continental us and in overseas environments thank you mr chairman sir in the marine quote we classify readiness in three different groups you have unit readiness which takes care takes care of war fighting our capabilities we have personal readiness the readiness of the individual marine and family readiness when when when you get down to three our forward units will always be taken care of they're out on the on the edge where we suffer are the hometown station the readiness of hometown stations that when something happens a crisis the forward units they're there but it's the hometown station that's going to take off and be there within the next 24 hours they're going to join them so degradation degradation of the forces at home personal readiness having the programs simple fit simple fit simple fitness programs that take care of individual Marines our barracks our gyms you know those things our ranges the things that actually prepare us and help us be the most capable you know war fighting organization that we can and then you come to our families it's simply the war you're knowing that the schools that kids go to the daycares are available when we pcs we make permanent changes station moves and you're trying to just as command master you said licensing credentials of family members not so much the members that that are in the military but they're family members going forward being able to take those jobs and not have to do things from state to state and then there's transition transition those who leave the services having the capability to step out of the service after serving whether it's four years of 40 years and go out in society and actually make an impact on day one connecting those dots we can do a lot better from state to state and federally to help us with that the transition proposal put in place in 2011 veterans opportunity for work has absolutely transformed our how we transition warriors but there's still a gap there sir that we need to close sergeant chairman i would say the the top three quality of life issues for our air force our airmen in the air force number one is ops tempo so we're the smallest air force that we've ever been and there are many challenges that come with the high ops tempo and the multiple deployments in the many places that we help defend around around the globe and so that's why the increase that we're we're trying to get to is critical i would say the second is paying compensation uncertainty so the things i mentioned earlier about bh and with the new blended retirement system some of our airmen have to decide pretty early here whether they want to opt in and then going forward many of our younger airmen will there be some level of uncertainty with this this new system and then i would in the third category i would lump in childcare challenges and spouse employment challenges that we have for for our family so those would be our our three top quality of life issues thank you all i see my time has expired but for the next round of questioning i'll ask each of you to think about a very specific milcon or housing need that each of you have and on the child care you mentioned that master chief i just saw a nice pbs story about the marine court camp legion about what you're doing in child care down there so that i recognize a miss washman shoals for her questions thank you mr chairman and i appreciate each of your testimony i do want to ask some questions of sergeant major green about the marines united facebook page that was recently discovered and i was glad to hear you reference it in your opening statement frankly the initial statement about it was to me didn't provide the level of outrage that i think most women would have felt was necessary but you know you've got a private facebook page with 30 000 members it has a practice similar to the way child pornography sites work which i have a lot of experience in terms of combating child pornography and legislating against it where members of this private facebook page were encouraged to upload more and more photos obviously when that kind of encouragement exists it means they're essentially encouraging people to commit a crime because that's what privately you know clandestinely taking pictures of individuals who aren't aware of those photos are being either taken or utilized that's what that is so although i'm glad to see that immediate action was taken one of my questions is how could this possibly have happened and how long had the facebook group have been running with 30 000 members many of whom i assume were active duty how is it that this was up for the length of time that it likely was so how long was it up and how is it that this could have been allowed to go unchallenged until someone who was retired discovered it and exposed it first of all there's an investigation going on and we haven't gotten any of the details from ncis on this particular this particular hard drive that was out there on marines united in no way shape or form that the leadership noted the hard drive was was there or we would have addressed it right away it's it's not like we knew it was there and the retired marine brought it out he brought it to us once we found out it was there we acted on it i understand how everybody wants us to come out and be outraged and we are outraged we are but i would tell you this a few years ago this happened in 2013 john amos was a common and i printed out the document here tough talk about a marine common on james amos complicates the sexual assault cases we are we are outraged there's some things we'd like to say but due to the legal situation when he came out and he made both statements about how he felt about sexual assault the judicial system said that that the statements he made would act could actually have a negative impact on where they wanted to go with prosecution that's written from the judge in the statement so we we're reminded of this so we have to be careful what we say about a database out there that we really don't know how many are active duty how many are retired or who they are it doesn't matter it's disrespectful we don't condone it that's what we said in the beginning the statement came out for myself in the common on where the investigation goes once it's out there we will do what's right and we will do what's legal to take action on those individuals first it certainly does matter how many active duty members of the marines who are participating in this inappropriate inappropriate unacceptable outrageous conduct so i'd like an answer to that question and i just as soon as you can provide it yes sir second i'm incredulous that anyone would suggest that the leadership of the marine corps or any branch of the military being muted suggesting that being muted in criticism or outrage was more appropriate and that expressing more direct concern in a higher level of concern would impede a criminal investigation that that makes absolutely no sense to me so i i will tell you that it doesn't send the right message to your women in the marine corps when they had there is a as muted a reaction from your leadership as i certainly interpreted there was this is just an extension of the sexual assault problem that is pervasive in the military and the environment in which too many women have to work and and live with and it and it has to be addressed more seriously and comprehensively than than it has been master chief giordano um it was also reported that navy corpsmen who as you know work very closely with marines were also included in this facebook group um are you concerned at all that there is a navy version of this facebook group are you investigating to see whether that that that exists congresswoman i i can't comment i have to take that for the record i can't comment on the investigation that's unfolding i'm not aware of those situations right now but i can tell you that and i think i spoke to this a little bit yesterday with you um you know my wife is with me today and we have two daughters at home and i want my daughters to grow up in an environment and be able to either serve in our our military or not and whatever they decide to do i want them to know that they have you know they are treated with dignity and respect in their life and it doesn't matter if you're a male or a female our navy treats everybody that way and our leadership will continue to hold people accountable for any injustice that occurs and we take it seriously and what this does is beyond anything else but beyond the cruel act itself it takes away from what the nation what the american people ask us to do every day which is to be war fighters out there to focus on the competition this takes away from our collective soldiers sailors airmen and marines to be able to do this and we're going to continue to work towards strategies prevention strategies that will get at the heart of this response is a great thing and you can't have a great prevention strategy without a great response strategy and that's the next step in this and that's where our navy is attacking mr chairman i know my time to aspire but for the record i'd like major sergeant daily and chief right to answer the question of whether you are concerned about whether or not this type of activity is occurring whether there are facebook groups or other types of online you know secretive groups that that where this conduct is occurring and if you've been a gun investigating to see if that if it is occurring in your branches of the armed services thank you if they can answer that if you can answer briefly in congressman washington we are very much concerned and it's something that we identified actually last year i sat on a council for the chief staff of the army and the secretary then to take a look at what the problem was online and the conduct that possibly our soldiers may be doing and as a result of that in february of this year the united states army published an extorter that clearly states that online conduct whether it be online or in person is unacceptable behavior by a member of the united states army and will not be tolerated and that extorter empowers our commanders to take the appropriate action when that conduct is found congresswoman uh at at this time we are uh we don't have any indication that this is happening uh in our air force it doesn't mean that we're not concerned uh and certainly if we were uh to find out that something like this would happen we would make sure it was fully investigated and and and taken care of so we do have an an ongoing kind of presence in the cyber world investigating things things like this from our air force osi another agency so i think if we had something of this nature uh we'd be able to catch it pretty quickly and and prosecute those members thank you thank you sir sir can i say can i just say one thing sure man when i say it doesn't matter what i said was it doesn't matter whether they're active reserve or they're not in the marine corps anymore that's what i say for the record let me recognize uh mr taylor for questions thank you mr chairman thank you guys for being here today i have personal understanding of what you have done to get to the positions that you're in right now so i thank you for you and your families and sacrifice that you guys have put into our military and i just just for the record um you know it is a very serious thing that that that we're talking about right now with the marine corps and what happened online but i trust that you guys are taking this very seriously and working really hard and dealing with it very swiftly i for one don't need to hear you you know have outrage i understand who you are and how you're handling it i know you're outraged and i know you'll deal with it accordingly so thank you for that um you talked about credentialing can you can each of the services talk to me about just briefly where we are with that in terms of how we're helping both the the the military member and their families and the transition and where we are in credentialing with tuition assistance not just being used for for education from a traditional college but what are your thoughts and where are you on using it for to get credentialing to get certifications and state approved you know the same way the gi bills use state approved organizations that do those things and and how do you see that benefiting your service and our service members congressman taylor thanks for the question and i appreciate the opportunity credentialing is one of my big initiatives united states army first and foremost i'd like to thank congress for what you did in last year's ndaa which allowed us to provide credentialing to our soldiers their commencement with the mls skills that they have that directly translate to skills um outside in american job job force i think that you ask where we could get significant help still is that to fill the vacancy of which we have most of the members of the united states army my soldiers are combat arms and their skills do not directly translate to skills in the in the in the civilian sector and therefore we believe that the good use of um federal assistance dollars to complement their ability to to get degrees would be to allow them to use federal assistance dollars to pursue credentials while they're on active duty through our extensive efforts to increase our shoulder for life program and our transition services through the last several years we have shown that we can reduce unemployment compensation significantly in 2011 unemployment compensation was over 500 million dollars and as a result of the efforts we've done so far we've knocked that down to about 172 million dollars this year we believe that if congress can assist in helping the states this will benefit both our soldiers and our family members specifically our spouses by helping us create laws or making conducive for states to have reciprocity for credentials for both our military and our spouses as well thanks sir congressman you know first let me say thank you for your service it it grows a it resonates with me in this panel i just want you to know that and you thank us but we thank you for your service as well too sir from a credentialing perspective you know the navy credentialing program you know catalogs this whole process and we have over 1800 credentials currently available to to our sailors and they take advantage of it and our success rate in them earning their credentials is pretty high but we continue to expand that and we have yet to have a sailor request a credential and not be approved for that credentialing to go through that that that credentialing pipeline but we continue to look for opportunities to expand as my battle buddy and serge major daily mentioned those opportunities to work with our state partnerships that will will expand the credentialing opportunities a little bit more and what we use to leverage to help fund those is something i think we can have you know further discussion about whether it's continuous use of what they currently get through through gi bill benefits or post 911 benefits or the expansion of ta but our navy credentialing program office currently funds those credentialing opportunities for our sailors and they're taking advantage of them all and just so you know since we've been talking about credentialing for the last few years you know we've we've credentialed over 160,000 sailors sir like the army before you answer just there's some feedback here if you're not speaking make sure you're on the microphone all right we're going to check that i'll just move it away i like the army our largest m.o.s is infantry and there are a lot of universities on the list where marines can utilize tuition assistance we're going on a checklist to make sure that those those universities that they're utilizing our first credentials themselves to make sure we're not wasting money or they're not wasting their hard-earned dollars going to universities they really don't matter because they're not credentialed and then we're partnering partnering with with organizations out there such as the Marine Corps League American Legion and we're having them because they're just about in every state in the nation and we've worked it out where the Transition Readiness Seminar i'll be out in California next week taking a look at this we'll we'll contact that that organization forward of where their marines going and their family and they'll connect with them before they get there and ask them what what exactly they want to do and they'll whether it's get to the VA whether it's get to an organization get a job get in school they're actually helping us in a big way and that's been a big plus up for us sir congressman thank you for the question Air Force with regard to credentialing for our active duty members we're doing pretty good so we have about 642 different types of certifications and about a 190 various licenses that you can earn through the United States Air Force and we have a credentialing opportunities online so we have a very nice portal that allows airmen to to log in and and determine what what credential credentialing they want to get done we still have a little bit of work to do with credentialing for spouses with some of the reciprocity issues moving from state to state so we continue to work with the department of labor with each state to to help our spouses be able to transition some of their credentials and licenses when particularly for some of our senior members honestly who PCS quite a bit and certainly for our junior members who are spouses who may just be entering the workforce so I think we still have a little bit of work to do takes a lot of collaboration between us in the states but certainly I like what we've done over the years with our credentialing for our Air Force members you have represented Bishop thank you let me again welcome all of you back and thank you for your service I appreciate you're taking the opportunity to come by and visit prior to your testimony here today and look forward to continuing to work with you for the benefit of service members and their families let me deal with some of the financial readiness questions that I might have I've got two one of them has to do with the military conversation retirement modernization commission report the commission's recommendation number seven are proposed that we improve support for service members dependence with special needs by aligning services offered under the extended care health option for those of state Medicare waiver programs which has not yet been implemented by the Department of Defense as we continue to make military health care reforms are we doing enough for the families who have children with extraordinary medical needs and can you offer any clarity on why this policy change has not yet taken effect and my second question has to do with the new blended retirement system which will go into effect on January 1st next year service members will less than 12 years of service will be able to opt into the system my question is do our service members feel like they received adequate information training and financial counseling to be able to make informed decisions about the financial benefits the cost of opting into the new system and what if any remaining steps are being taken to educate and prepare service members I'll stop there Congressman Bishop if I may I'd like to address your first question and concern with Mickermick's recommendation number seven for ECHO we believe that ECHO is a means by which we provide our service members to the extended care they need for the special cases that their family members may have and because of the difficulties with the different 50 states like we talked with credentialing applying their recommendation Medicaid it's difficult for us to do at this time and until we can get those states to come online to provide a standard of care that's consistent for our service members across east of the states we believe that ECHO is the the way we should continue to provide that service because all of you don't have to address it if if you have some answers but let me just say that this is an issue that as co-chair of the congressional military family caucus we really want to lift up and we probably need to dig a little bit deeper into it when we have our summit coming up a little bit later so I'd like to get your input on that and that of your families yes sir thank you you know it's only been around two years and we're going to change the entire retirement system for the military and it's going to have a huge impact what the impact is we have no idea anyone that that says they know exactly what's going to happen you know they need to be paid very well the most concerned are the individuals that are in the middle from January 1st 2006 to December 31st 2017 the ones that have to make a choice because for you know January 1st 2018 they're on like i'm on my plan those individuals uh the databases that have been put forward the the everything on the internet the financial professional the counselors we have out there we've asked the questions the comment on our travel next week two different directions this will be one of our main topics and so far everyone's pleased with the information that they've gotten the the risk is it's it's in it's in the market you know when you talk about investing you're talking about i stated you know earlier youngest service average age 25 you know we're 17 years coming in and they're gonna have to make life choices you know to stay for 20 years what what was the impact of the choice i made 10 years ago it's those type of scenarios we're trying to get through we are getting through them but i absolutely think it's the right thing to do sir because everyone can walk away with something as they do and they can transport it as civilians do congressman may in in reference to the health care piece um i look forward i'll take part of that for the record and then i look forward to working and having conversation with your team through the commission in reference to blended retirement system i think the navy is in a good state of play uh with educating our our sailors and their family members it's part of our military life cycle system it's embedded inside there we've educated 125 financial managers inside our fleet and family support centers we've done that with our leadership teams as well too at every level of command our sailors are being trained on it today on a regular basis we've implemented a financial literacy application it also provides them access and we're going to turn online a blended retirement system calculator that will allow them to inject and kind of look through this system and what is the best option for them as they sit down and receive the education and the training to make a better informed decision come 2018 congressman uh same thing i'm really looking forward to working with that commission on our exceptional family members we do a good job of our detailers our assignments and our personnel folks of making sure that we have the right resources available for our families with exceptional children and family members on the blended retirement obviously like my battle buddy just said this is just starting but we have a pretty good program for educating our airmen in two in two arenas one is making sure that they understand the options the the process of opting in understand what that means what that means for them and for their families and then the second phase of training for us is the financial literacy part and so we treat those as two kind of separate entities when it comes to making sure they understand exactly what they're getting into with the blended retirement system so thank you mr. mr. Valdale thank you chairman thank you uh for the panel for your service obviously and thank you very much for taking some time today uh congressman taylor asked my question but i wanted to follow up a little bit on the credentialing because that is something that obviously affects quite a few folks on their way out um when we get in the specifics and i know that uh chief master sergeant talked a little bit about the states the difference between the states but when you get into like let's say a commercial driver's license for example uh difference between california and uh pennsylvania there are going to be differences is there anything we in congress can do to help with that i mean i know dollars but um when there are differences between states somehow that we can streamline or be of any assistance here at the federal level without getting too much into um states rights obviously i'll take a turn the real question is if you're driving let's say products you're driving a truck for you know walmart if you're driving it in pennsylvania you're driving in california i mean what are the real differences from the driver what are the real that's what we need the congress to help us with why why does every state have it seems like it's a collection of taxes i mean you got 50 states and some territories and everybody's got their own driving credentials or i don't understand it i don't understand it when you when you look at if you take a look at air traffic control or cyberspace when you get credentialed you're credentialed federally i don't care whether you go from state to state air traffic control in mississippi same as the one in virginia the credentials are the same i notice some differences in you know if you're driving chemicals and things like that but the basic credentials for driving when a warrior is driven in combat and driven ammunition and everything comes out and they've got a recredential to drive groceries i don't think that's that's right okay conference later and this is uh one of my big initiatives that i mentioned before i think if we get this right we really can make a difference because as i've been told there's over six million jobs in america that will go unfilled this year alone because of a lack of credential technical trade skills and we have a lot of those to offer from our service members that are leaving their service with regards specifically to the driver's life it's just something we've been working for about four years in the army and our center of excellence down at fort lee is our largest truck driving school and we went state by state working reciprocity for each one of them the good news is most of those states now have acknowledged the written examination form of the cdl license the barrier is still the over-the-road test and that's the difference in equipment we think that if we can provide additional training to our service members while they're on active duty and part of that being you know a civilian rig with a standard shift because most of ours are automatic we can finish that barrier and get them license each one of those states because those states all already have signed up to recognize the training that we give our our young service members and the question wasn't directly just that that was an example obviously it's a simple one but yes sir and i i think that's the key that is the challenge with credentialing i think that the language in ndaa 16 that authorized us the ability to appropriate dollars specifically to train soldiers if their mo skills match those of civilian sector jobs is a language we need to do to provide additional credentialing ability for our soldiers so they can self-directed and what we really have to focus on instead of getting states to recognize our licensing most states licensed through what they call the industry standard so if you look at welding or mechanics or things and the goal is to get our service members credentialed through them so they won't have the issues concerns of trying to make and meet the requirements of each state okay thanks congressman if i may you know i i think the the real piece in this is you know it's you know you can credential a sailor you know uh you know at any time throughout their career they have an opportunity to earn a credential but is that credential going to be something that the civilian market's going to need when they make that transition or you know make that decision to separate or retire from military service so it my my point to this is is we have to kind of link the period of time uh and we currently have a skill bridge program that looks at about 180 day window that allows service members and spouses the opportunity to earn credentials and licensing while on active duty during that time period to then link to an employer who is actually hiring to serve in those skillsets so i think if if we could look at opportunities to continue to expand and build those relationships in that process it gets at the heart of its timely uh it's it's financially sound and and it's an investment uh for all is there enough communication between the private sector those jobs and the military so that we're aligning those programs appropriately congressman if i i i think it's more of a pool from the military service then it is a push from the civilian sector that's how i do and i would agree with that but is there enough communication to make sure that that the private sector is letting you folks know where the opportunities are out and what they need i think we have lots of instance of success or where we have partnered with industry or installations to build what is the csp programs our skills programs at our transition centers but i don't think we have broken the barrier between the understanding of industry knowing exactly the world-class skills that we give our young service members um because i talk to people all the time and they're unaware of the level of skill that we we provide our young men and women there's always that gap you always feel like they're especially in my district i've got a large ag district and uh trying to make that connection between the industry sometimes your community colleges sometimes uh your high school counselors knowing what the opportunities are and and filling that gap seems to always be a difficult one so appreciate the time thank you you will be able to pursue some of this in the second round of questioning miss lee thank you very much thank you mr chair and our ranking member and thank you all for being here today and for for your service quality of life issues resonate with me deeply i'm the daughter of a 25-year veteran served in the in world war two korea he was in the my dad was in the 92nd infantry in uh italy supporting the normandy invasion toward the end of his life he asked me and he still told me he told me to stop calling him daddy but call him colonel tutt so i had to salute him i mean that's how deep this goes with me i'm also um my former husband former wife air force many years my nephew in the marines uh he was in the marines still suffering health uh effects of the gulf war and my father-in-law was in the navy so you know your service and what you're trying to do to help with quality of life really is extremely important and i've been on the inside so i know how important it is i want to ask you with regard to women and what is taking place uh now with the marines but what is it about the culture of the military that allows for the denigration of women for hostile workplace you know i mean studies have shown that you know in hostile workplaces women are really discouraged from staying in their career and so investigations yes programs yes but what is it that's so systemic in the culture that allows for this to take place and i mean i'm i mean i'm shocked uh i shouldn't be because i know the military very well but how do we get to the cultural issues here consulate if i could comment on that and i don't have the answer to question but i would like to tell you that unfortunately a few members bring the culture of the army down or give the perception of the military and it's not the truth inside of our military today i'm proud of what we've done to integrate women into our army for the last several years and we started this initiative four years ago but we've been doing it for 241 years and we've shown great success just as past year alone we've recruited more women than we have in the last decade 14 000 i have 400 plus young women right now who've signed up for combat arms and we are continuing to see that the prevalence for sexual assault is down and the reporting is consistent so i'm proud of what we've done i i i know that we have a lot to do i know that there's behavior that cannot be tolerated and it will not be but i would have to for the record say that we are doing i think a great job integrating our females into the force and and they are performing well i can answer from everyone yes congresswoman first first of all it's you know thank you to the entire family for all those years of service and it's nice to know that you know the father-in-law brings the sailor peace into the conversation at at thanksgiving and those times when you get together you know as i mentioned earlier you know we we we seem to be looking at these things from a measure of response right how do we get at these things from a measure of response and sometimes we don't really get into the the analytical approach to things looking at the data looking at the specifics associated with the case and go the things that we put forward and the things that we fund and getting to um an environment and the navy is extremely adamant about this that again treats everybody with dignity and respect and we're forward affords the same opportunities for all you know getting to that data and make sure that what we're doing is really getting at the heart of it so we're not just providing education and training to say we're providing education and training we're really getting to the analytics of stuff and i also share real quickly two things that the navy put forward one that you'll find inside our design for maintaining maritime superiority it's not just war fighting efforts it's getting at core attributes that support our core values that you know those attributes of initiative integrity accountability and toughness and tying those into our core our core values of honor courage and commitment bringing that stuff forward and the other piece that we recently released was our leader development framework that gets to the other side of not just technical skill and competency as a sailor but the character piece of a sailor and how do we develop that over a sailor's career so that's kind of where we're at in this prevention strategy with our navy thank you for the question ma'am um i was son of the naval academy i have a daughter 14 years old at all the naval academy sent her a letter she plays volleyball she's five foot 11 14 years old and we had a conversation you know about military life um i'm proud to say that my daughter said she wants to come into marine corps i would not tell her not to come i would not it's a people's it's a people's business it absolutely is um to think that you know the leadership is not actively engaged and outraged you know i'm a cyber security major forensics and policy i i know about these deep places that exist and we don't this is the tip of the spear this is the tip of the spear i agree with everything the command mouse chief said about being proactive but the places these individuals can go and hide have not been addressed in a legal manner they absolutely have not so we start looking for laws to get at this in the punitive system we have 120 c that talks about you know um you know uh you know disrespect and that type of stuff and we get the 134 which is the journal article in the legal system i mean when i'm i'm waiting to see how we're going to address this because i guarantee there are going to be some gaps at trying to get at this we need the teeth to get at it you can't just there there needs to be a direct law that addresses this type of activity in that cyber world i don't think anybody can tell me the direct law that gets at this i mean on a proactive side we can put things in place policies and things like that but you have to get at where they're hiding that this is 2017 the ability for a predator and then they would be attracted to places like this because it's large numbers of people large numbers of people and we're doing everything we're going to continue to do everything we can look at our policies looking at how we recruit the recruiting phase of it the delayed entry program where we are with recruiting the recruit themselves in recruit training you know all the policies that we have we're going through that right now but where this database existed that's another story our our job is to train marines to grow marines that know that this is the wrong thing to do and do not do not you know get involved in this type of action or think they're innocent bystanders when they know what's going on Mr. Fortnberry thank you gentlemen for appearing today and for your service um Sergeant Major Green you initiated the discussion on this topic and we've covered it exhaustively but i want to say a few more comments like you master chief i have daughters i have five daughters one of whom is recently expressed some mild interest in a particular branch of the military i don't think oughta divulge that but nonetheless i don't want to bias any potential decision it's absolutely critical that we have a culture of respect that abuse and exploitation are not allowed you all know this i'm sure that the day you found out this latest scandal occurred either through the newspaper some pre-briefings you just said i just wanted to be a simple soldier simple marines simple airmen because your job is to protect the country and yet because of human failings and the size of the forces that you're under your command these are real realities that we have to deal with so let's lean into this aggressively as i know you will um a number of you have commented on especially finding out metrics as to how well we are doing in terms of inclusivity treating people fairly i understand that there may be certain constraints that you're under so as to not bias any legal proceedings but i think your last comment was a good one maybe a re-examination of certain laws as to how to get at the underpinnings of this would empower you further to create that culture respect so let's move on from there um sergeant major green you said the average marine is 25 is that eight that is probably going up i would assume the average age of the marine is going up that's surprised me i thought it'd be a little lower is that a consistent 65 percent of the marine corps i'm sorry 65 percent of the marine corps are 25 or younger 65 percent oh i see okay so okay so it depends on how you parse the statistic well is the average age of the entrance going up that's no question we were stable so we recruit from the same streets of america every year 30 000 in 30 000 out we would like to mature the force you gave us 3000 in the nda so we're going to take 2000 from the recruiting world 1000 has to be the leader to lead that 2000 so that's how we have to grow it we know we can't grow any faster than about 3000 a year to have that leader to let ratio that ratio went down to when we when we went from 202 to 182 which we closed out last year that downsizing of the force to that level you know because they choose to get out they choose i spoke about that they pick it they they say whether they're gonna stay or get out some quality marines walked away from the corps because of uncertainties they walked away from it so we have what we have and and in the 15 years that we grew in the 15 years of fighting we had to grow so fast up front until we have to take more what we call category fours that's on the scoring system you know of how the the ASVAP testing to come in when you're at war you take risk on who you take in that's different from when you're in peacetime because every service here grew very fast very fast us being the younger service we're going to recruit more high school than anybody else absolutely absolutely so we take more risk we accept the risk but i'm sorry to interrupt you i'm going to lose my time right quick so your point i think the broader point is readiness tied to quality of life quality of life potentially even tied to transitional benefits is critical to retaining the type of experience that you need uh and there is a concern that you have there given that your your average age is younger but the average experienced officer if you will maybe a little bit younger than what you what you would like i think that's what you're telling me and lastly sir to mature the force and get an older Marine Corps it costs more costs more to keep me okay let me transition quickly to the transition conversation and sergeant made a deal that you you have worked tirelessly on this and i know i liked what you just said in terms of conforming the military standards to what the industry standards will meet rather than us going state by state and trying to figure that out i'm sorry we weren't able to interact with you this past year on our excellent idea of bringing you out to Nebraska but maybe we can keep that issue alive i do have two other considerations briefly maybe we'll have to come back to it i propose using the g i bill benefit in a creative way not to take anything away but also to augment the possibilities of its use for members of the military who might have gained significant experience in one field or another and are ready to transition into a small business using a portion of those benefits to guarantee a loan so that they can have adequate capital movement in that business i'm very interested in this because remember the g i bills intent was transition and now we translated that over the decades appropriately someone's very helpful to many people to higher education but that's not the only way to transition so this would not remove a benefit or an option but it would augment an option for monies that are highly underutilized by military personnel maybe we can come back to it mr chairman just so hold you get time to formulate your what will be i'm sure excellent answers thanks answer that if you could answer that in the second round that'd be great let me go to mr ryan thank you mr chairman thank you gentlemen appreciate you being here and it's an honor to be on this committee with such talented members of congress first i'd just like to associate myself with the remarks that have been made with regard to the recent issue that we're dealing with with the marine corps and i'd also like to say major green one of the other issues i work a lot on is the additive manufacturing and 3d printing initiative happening within the department of defense and the military marines in particular are doing a lot of work with your forward deployments with 3d printers trying to repair broken parts and so on and so forth so from a quality of life issue when you're in the heat of the battle i think we're moving in a direction to really empower the warfighter so i want to thank thank you for that my question is focused on the health of the force and the healthy base initiatives that that we are trying to promote many of the dining facilities have been consolidated or closed in the army alone one in three dining facilities were ordered to either close or reduce size in august 15 closing 14 dining facilities resulting in bases such as uh fort belvoir not any form dining facility so the limited hours make it hard for service members to be able to to get something to eat at nearby fort mead breakfast ends at 8 am but pt doesn't finish till 7 30 or longer dinner ends at 6 30 so there's no dinner after 6 30 and that does not seem to work for a lot of the active adults there's a continued high rate of service members losing their careers doing due to weight and fitness standards number of army soldiers kicked out for weight standards jumped tenfold between 2008 and 2012 with 1800 soldiers losing their job and the navy almost 10 of the force 34 000 sailors have failed at least one physical fitness test since 2011 and most were due to weight standards so we know these problems we see a fees and next com are running the convenience food and fast food outlets on the base while the base commander is running the dining facilities and defense exchange uh commissaries is running the common commissaries so there's no coordinated holistic effort about how we can best try to deal with this issue so knowing these problems uh there was a press release from the army air force exchange system about participating in the b-fit program that is part of the healthy base initiative the three healthy base choice options uh for a fees that the they were bragging about is Subway Popeyes fried chicken and Charlie's Philly cheese steak company not exactly beacons of healthy living now let me just say i'm i'm not approved i like chicken wings i you can catch me with some ice cream at 10 o'clock at night when the kids go to bed so i'm not saying that you know we all have to go vegan in the military what i am saying is we understand now what healthy eating the the impact of unhealthy eating has uh on our war fighters and to me this just doesn't make any sense we were in spain and uh i was with Seth Moten and we were going around the space in the most incredible restaurants around the base uh and they closed down all the restaurants and there was like you know fast food we're like you're in spain and you got this amazing food all around and we're like feeding our our troops uh some fast food and so the question really is how would you characterize the availability of healthy fresh food for uh for our soldiers and airmen uh in the convenient food and how can we make this convenient and what would you all like to see done that could help and improve the nutrition and health of our force congressman thank you for the question i would say it varies we have pockets of military installations and and i would certainly say for air force installations where we have our food transformation initiative where we've brought in healthy options into our dining facilities we brought some healthy options onto a certain basis but with uh when it comes to a fees and some of the other options that we look at as we talk to some of these businesses it becomes a value proposition for them when when they look and and see if they can be profitable on a military installation in some instances to answer at least for them is is no and so it becomes a challenge to to to get them to buy in to open in a restaurant a healthy food option on the base and so again i would say it varies i think we have a lot of work to do in this area our services personnel are working hard to continue food transformation throughout our air force in the basis particularly in the basis where we have populations of younger airmen and things of that nature so i think we're making progress but we have a long way to go with the healthy food options and initiatives we'll get one more sir if i could first address your concerns to specific to the army base as you mentioned i'm not aware they're working hours right now but i promise you i'll visit them and if they don't meet soldiers needs i'll change them so we'll make sure unfortunately we've had to reduce dining facilities and that's a result of the drawdown and just up until months ago and i had my open statement we're an army going to its lowest point since war war two and we had to make tough choices i can assure you that soldiers do have healthy choices our dining facilities initiative we started several years ago and those healthy choices are actually displayed on each one of the meals that describes what their healthy choice is but the truth of the fact is our soldiers make choices that aren't consistent with the values and traditions of military service as you mentioned but that's uh that is difficulty sometimes getting those individuals when i was a base arm major at fork arson colorado and we had significant challenges we had plenty of space for franchises that had had a healthy choice to come on our installation but because of franchising laws and competition of the local community they didn't want to do it they didn't want to come on our military basis because also there's a cost associated with this as the air force chief mentioned with regards to specifically with a fees i can assure you that mr tom shull i sit on the board and we've been working this hard for the last several years we are putting what is called fresh into our shoppets which is healthy choices we've moved high sale items and put it fresh fruit on on the counters on the way out to make sure and we're seeing an increase in that mr shull is also working very hard to get healthy choice options and again that's challenging with regards to the businesses that want to work with our military basis based upon their geographical location in the competition we have off our installations i don't think that's where the time comes in if the if there aren't any healthy options retail and the commissary is closed and you know you have a long day you're gonna do what we all do you're gonna go eat bad something bad for you sure but the the issue for us mr chairman's we've got 1800 and 15 soldiers that we trained and spent a hell of a lot of money on that are no longer now in the army so that's a that's wasted money so here we are squeezing the budget and this is a cost that i think goes overlooked a lot of the time so this is something that i i think with a little tweaking here or there we could probably make some headway so i thank you thank you mr chairman thank you mr ryan somebody who's on the whole 30 diet right now i certainly appreciate your question you want me to talk about that potpies chicken some more thank you for those questions um just uh before we finished the my first round of questioning i had mentioned um if you had any specific milcon military construction project that or or any housing needed any installation that is of particular concern to you that you want to bring to my attention now if you just quickly run down the line there's any just one project that you really want it's a priority for you let me know sir uh there and there is i think that because of the last several years we've had to choose between readiness and support um because we had to meet the nation's needs and we have had significant degradation in our facilities right now the army is at 22 percent q3 and q4 i'm embarrassed to say that a large portion of that is in our soldiers barracks ford hood being the example if you ask me if there was one place that we could put uh money into right now ford hood it's ford hood texas sir okay uh congressman williams and carter will appreciate that they shared that with me as well okay so ford hood is your priority yes sir okay that's chief sir mr chairman you you know i wouldn't say one location i would say that you know our uh unaccompanied housing today for our single sailors is is currently at uh rate at 65 percent of that is adequate so that means there's a large portion that is inadequate today um and we just need to get at that holistically so we need to look at unaccompanied housing for single sailors across the spectrum in our navy okay thank you sergeant major same for the marine court sir um hawaii was a place that you all did i need to thank you all for over the last few years you've given us a lot of funds and resources to upgrade the only problem we have is uh before we could finish you know the money's ran out and for the last few years we haven't been resourced to level where we can complete that project sir thank you mr chairman that priority for us would be our bmt infrastructure so dormitories uh and some of the other infrastructure uh tracks and sporting equipment for uh to help us handle the new uh sessions as we continue to grow as a force so our air force uh basing military training any location in particular uh san Antonio Texas lacking air force base thank you okay let me uh move on to uh the issue of uh department of defense schools um as you know the dods committed to recapitalizing more than half of the 192 schools over the next five five years i guess um do any of you have any personal experiences with worn down dod school facilities uh that need to be replaced i know the educational needs of your families are extremely important i want to hear what your thoughts are on that and we don't have to start with you army when we start with the navy this time uh this chairman from it from a personal experience as you asked you know uh again i have two daughters um we just recently left uh naples italy there is a uh dodia school uh there on the installation in naples it's a fantastic facility um our our oldest daughter has been in and out of schools of course throughout her young life so far but we don't i i cannot say anything negative about those school systems and the only thing i would offer is that you know if there's opportunity to increase growth capacity in those school systems that would be a benefit and the ability to hire and retain uh teachers inside those facilities figuring out a way to improve those processes with more efficiency would help inside those those school systems as well too and if i can just follow up to um can you just also briefly address the needs of uh special needs children at these uh schools are they being addressed adequately as well i meant to ask that to all of you for special needs children miss chairman i i had to take that one for the record but i don't have any indications coming to me that we are not providing uh in that regard thank you so i can speak to that sir andrew and my wife um you know apologize for not being as she works in the emergency room she worked last night and she'll work again this afternoon saving lives so but she sits on the education board um and special needs is something we pay close attention to um the the places where you really get get the friction with having you know the individuals that support you know by working there are places where you have smaller bases where they're out in the middle of nowhere and how do you get the people there you know and pay them the you know comparative price they're going to make out in town to work at a do d school so that's that's the problem we have with the when you when it comes to funding paying them uh even in the cdcs today we don't have a shortage of space for kids we have a shortage of individuals working in the cdcs because outside of the gates they pay more than we can afford to pay mr chairman i spend a fair amount of time overseas throughout my air force career so i've worked a lot with do d schools most of them seem to be doing pretty pretty good there are a few projects where we could use some help uh i know uh at lincoln heat their base in uh rory air force station in and uh in the uk there's a a large school project which which base in the uk lincoln heat okay yes sir thank you but for the most part i think you're doing well and like i said previously with respect to our exceptional family members we do a good job of making sure that they have the subcommittees is it is uh molesworth and uh kraut masters sir like chief mentioned i don't have specifics on do you do schools it's not something my soldiers and family members have uh are concerned about at least from voicing their opinions on it but i will take it for the record on each one of those schools and report back to you on what we believe the families believe is a condition of each of them thank you this time i recognize the ranking member for a second round of questioning thank you mr chairman um sergeant major green i want to follow up on what congresswoman lee was referring to as far as culture um and i hope you're gonna appreciate that the reason i asked you the question about an express concern about the level of concern and outrage from the highest level of the marine corps is that when that muted um less than outraged concern is expressed that contributes to the culture that perpetuates this conduct um if you don't as a marine corps member feel that your highest level of leadership is expressing enough concern um it's while certainly not sanctioning it um giving a level of permissiveness or sending a a less than concerned message um but i want to uh ask you about something you implied earlier in your your response do you not are you not aware of or is there not um sufficient teeth or legal tools uh for you for the marine corps to prosecute a member of the marine corps who engages in criminal sexual activity online i mean do you not have the tools to to go after somebody who engages in that conduct we have the tools once they've committed that the act ma'am when if we go out there and we recognize and let's say someone brings something to our attention the ability to go and search in those places that's that's in a cyber world where you go okay you've heard something now you're going to go there and search um it takes a lot of you know you got to go get some some some warrants because i've looked at this this stuff and not to say that we won't do it not to say that we can't do it it's first recognizing where it exists and then having the legal means to go in there and listen and do all the things you need to do to collect it as a marine corps we have a cyber we have a cyber command our cyber command as i understand it and talking to them if we had recognized this database the question is could our cyber command then turn their assets and go into the world of of um you know private ip addresses and everything like that on american citizens so are are you unable like we can in the civilian side of the criminal justice system to seek warrants and secure them and just when we can is prosecute sexual predators online regularly but it's monitoring and recognizing had someone not leaked this out in the civilian world didn't recognize this there were no forms of cyber watching for this these things have popped up not just in the marine corps they popped up in society normally because someone has leaked out information not because we're watching everybody let's just report from a retired that's now and when he made when he made that report to us we started to act on it right away we went to ncis right away when he reported that's us we couldn't at that okay we he's he told us today today we go out with a statement and we say something first we need to get naval criminal investigative service and everyone else involved in this once they said okay we have something here we the comment I made a written statement I made a written statement yesterday the comment I came out with a video to the force um just to get at my question you you suggested that there were legal obstacles for from you pursuing this type of criminal sexual activity online not once it happens ma'am that's not legal the legal world that i'm talking about is the monitoring of the information that's out there okay and why would your ability to do that not mirror what the ability of investigating those types of crimes and trying to hunt them it's not in the civilian world it's not the investigative piece you investigate things because you know something of that something has happened the ability to watch for it before it happened to just monitor because we know what's going on okay um it is there any concern that the the photographs that were discovered on this private uh facebook and dropbox would be used to blackmail the female marines and you know what's being done to prevent this form of harassment in the future and what action is the marine court taking against the marines who joined this group the act of duty marines who joined the group I can't speak because of the investigation on the actions that we're taking specifically at the members ma'am because that's an investigation I can tell you Marine Corps with large we're going back to our policies making sure we have the right the correct teeth in the policies we're educating our force looking at this what assistance are you providing to the women who were the subject of these photos so as soon as it happened as soon as it happened ma'am before we even spoke about it we put it out there that the ig the legal assistance the same illegal legal assistance that you have for sexual assault they're afforded the same privileges we directed them anyone out there we put that out anyone out there that know of or think that their pictures or something have gotten out please contact the leadership are you concerned about blackmail at all absolutely ma'am we absolutely are and is there anything you're doing to help prevent that from occurring or deal with the harassment yes ma'am what would you say blackmail so an individual woman and i am the subject of one of these photos and it can be used against me blackmail retaliation so we've gotten a victim assistance legal assistance and you know support they're investigating all the cases that come forward NCIS everyone the leadership we're compiling all this information right now so when if someone comes forward and say this marine has you know this marine in the corps has you know shot i see my photo out there and this marine put it out there that marine has they're being read their rights as we identify them by the naval criminal investigation service that's what they do ma'am it's not like we're just sitting there and she comes forward and the leadership does nothing there's a legal process to address this and the commands are addressed as a woman have to come forward herself and say my picture is on the site or are you looking at these pictures and saying okay this is a marine who has had their photo posted their information exposed and are you trying to determine who it is that posted those photos that's what the investigation is all about ma'am that's why i'm asking you the question i've answered that three times i mean that that's what the investigation is all about okay i'd just like to just point out for the record if i may i can remember you know i guess for the record i just like to point out that the you know laws policies related to the posting the photos in this particular incident that we're all so outraged about it's you know the u.s law and uc nj are certainly relevant to this issue and i i just think i need to say that on the record that's what i want to clarify thank you um mr chairman i have some questions related to sexual assault in the military and women in combat but i can come back or you can mr taylor we'll go to we'll do that we'll come back we'll come back to it mr taylor thank you mr chairman my next question is on the the housing and i know one of one of you mentioned i can't remember which one about well actually two of you that one of the biggest issues are single or not accompanied excuse me but how would you how would you rate the success of the public private partnerships in the military housing program so far in the services how satisfied are our military families and or unaccompanied if that applies to them with these arrangements and then are there any other areas within dod that you think could benefit with the introduction of like a similar type private public partnerships and do you think that can help with address that unaccompanied problem sir the army i think that it's great we've demonstrated great success with the public private partnership with our housing i've lived in many of those houses and what we've had previously and we've seen that working with our partners that provided our soldiers a level of quality of housing that we've never seen before unprecedented in history of the army soon and they have a high approval rate i don't know the exact percentage but i believe it is in the upper 90 percentage from from our soldiers that live in those and their families that live in those houses we have um did some pilots with regards to privatization of our soldiers barracks i think i'd like to expand on that i think there's a capability for us to be able to gain some of the same benefits that we've gained through public private partnership with our single soldiers as we have with our married family members congressman so um i i you may have been referencing me as i spoke about unaccompanied housing in our and our single sailor facility so there's two pieces of this for the navy one part for the single sailors and i'm speaking specifically about the sailors that come off the ships the e1s the e3s the single e4s we have built uh two complexes through those partnerships one out in san diego pacific beacon and one in norfolk um home port ashore facility and another one being built at portsmouth these are if you haven't had the opportunity to see these these are immaculate facilities and they they don't just come with you know a room in beds and wi-fi and those kinds of things they also provide a number other of amenities that you may find similar things on an installation the other piece of this is is the unaccompanied housing on the installation i.e. the barracks facilities that infrastructure as i mentioned the 65 percent adequacy earlier that is a significant concern because what i worry about is the expectation of two sailors one that goes into a barracks on an installation and one that goes into one of these complexes through our private partner ventures and yes sir you are correct sir so so that's why i kind of think about and and how do we invest in the infrastructure piece on the installation to meet that same expectation for those same sailors with the private partner venture and the other piece of this are the family uh the families living in private partner ventures right living in complexes and we haven't even really talked or had a large conversation about the impact of the one percent up to five percent that's coming right we're at three percent right now uh the basic allowance for housing reduction in the effect that that's going to have with those partnerships that we have those facilities are you um have you thought as well or would you be uh is something that's that you would put on the table to look at in terms of privatizing on on base barracks it's just like the uh my charge did um congressmen i i would welcome the conversation and we can i'd be absolutely receptive to sit down and uh and discuss that with you thank you likewise in the marine course sir uh we just had uh one of the senior enlisted members for the team go out and take a look at all the other services and what they're doing with their barracks and their housing to learn you know lessons learned and we took a look at the army and the privatization of barracks that conversation did come up and we're we're going to explore with the army you know that possibility thank you i know y'all don't have any problems air force air force doesn't have any problems with uh those private houses well barracks thank you thank you mr chairman you're back gentlemen from virginia yields back thank you for your questions um at this time i'd like to flip the order we'll go to representative lee is that yeah i'll defer back to yield to represent bishop and i went through all that thank you very much so thank you for your courtesy we just talked in five minutes uh thank you i have just one question it's my understanding that last summer the services began to implement policies that allow service members to change gender while in the service furthermore according to the do d transgender timeline on july 1st of this year the services will begin to accept transgender members into the military how the service is educating and training the force on the transgender personnel policies have you developed any anti-arrestment policies specifically for transgender personnel and lastly at the unit level who will serve as advisors to commanders who may seek guidance on gender transition related issues congressman i'll i'll start um so first of all you know we don't we don't track transgender service members um secondly all our policies that are in effect are for all sailors um regardless of gender the third piece of uh or the other piece of this is as in regard to training we have uh completed um our active component training as of february of this year and we have a uh an april timeline of this year to complete that transgender training for our reserve force as well um and then the uh the other piece of this is is what is the support to the to the commanders out there there's there's two folds here one is is at the unit level uh through the commander themselves or the medical representation to the commander or the chaplain services provided and the other pieces inside our fleet and family support centers uh those counselors that have received the training in regard to implementation of the transgender policies congressman bishop and air force we have about 70 or 70 to 75 cases of transgender airmen that that we're aware of uh so we have two types of training we have transgender awareness training for all airmen and it's just it's designed to help all of us understand better the challenges of being a transgender uh service member and then we have some specific uh transgender awareness training for leaders uh aimed at commanders and and the unit level leaders and helping them work through same some of the same challenges I think both of these courses are rooted in uh dignity and respect for for these these service members uh and for commanders at the unit level the best place they can go for legal advice for advice and guidance is our legal personnel at the local basis and the medical personnel who uh have uh who are smart on on these issues so congressman sorry I'd be remiss if I also didn't acknowledge our navy's uh 21st century sailor office embedded inside that office is a is a portal that allows access to case managers to help facilitate any questions concerns from commanders or service members yes sir just like the my other components here too the the army has worked this in great detail we have approximately 20 soldiers that have been identified as a gender transgender uh soldiers and uh we have a working group at the part of the army level that allows the chain of command to access all of it to there if they have questions or concerns we haven't seen any concerns or issues with regards to those soldiers serving with inside the formations and just like my fellow members we have we already have procedures in place that talk about digging through respect and care of our soldiers and that's what we make all of our soldiers are bodied by in the army profession each and every day in the marine course so we have the same type training we have overall training and we have training for commanders and staffs um the command and I sat down about a year and a half ago uh we asked any transgenders that wanted to speak to the leadership and four came forward and sat down because we wanted to get educated at the highest levels uh understanding the support both in the military and for those that are coming into the military um and we had we were educated we were educated and we're educating our force it's it's like anything else it's something that everyone has to understand by by the rules and understand that it's truly about dignity and respect that's what it's all about the the concern is in the in the sessions pipeline um because there's some there's some some resources we need to facilitate infrastructure to make sure we have it right for for transgender marines and we can't get to those resources right now i yield back recognize mr fort mary i want to return to the question i'd asked earlier regarding gi bill benefits uh the initial intention of the bill helped transition extraordinarily well numbers of previous combat veterans all types of veterans into education in the workforce but again the initial intention was broader than just education that's the way it's been primarily translated and that's been a huge benefit um going off a bit of memory here i had a soldier from back home injured combat operations young man lost a limb motorcycle racer has excellent motorcycle mechanic skills highly highly unlikely he's going to pursue a higher education route this would be a mechanic so help that young man transition into his own mechanic business would be an ideal option to meet the goal of quality of life looking ahead as to what a soldier can expect if he puts his life at risk for for our country related to your recruiting um but we're constrained because we just transitioned away from this broader concept of the use of the gi bill so once your perspective on that i have a bill in this regard i've been working with some of the uh veteran service organizations to make sure that this doesn't look like some taking something away to to give to something else it's not that at all it's actually going back to original intent as congressman and as you know and i appreciate your help with this previously and as we continue to move forward with this i think that it's a time that we have to acknowledge that the traditional means if we accept success in the u.s is just a a traditional education and there's many means by which americans become successful and especially for our our excellent service members and especially our mooted warriors um and we know today that uh they can have a viable career some of my soldiers that are took advantage of our csc csp programs and fort lewis washington erection of the army starting off at 50 an hour i don't know of many undergraduate level degrees that will provide you with that same level of compensation the first year out so i i'd be i'd be supportive of anything with regards to making sure that we help our soldiers transition to the quality of life commensurate with that of service or even better it's a reinvestment of the future of the army you could help me by conveying that or reinforcing that to veteran service organizations who rightfully have a very protective disposition toward the g i bill and that this is not a threat this is actually an augmentation right and it's consistent with the original intent like you said sir i if the option exists we're not asking anybody just to give up their the right to choose one of the other but there's another means to educate our young men and women and there's an absence in the job market today that they can fill vice chairman i you know i i would never say anything that would take away from opportunities for our service members and their families to be successful in life and if i welcome those opportunities and i say families because i think about a number of conversations that i've had with spouses that talk about wanting to have the opportunity to kind of start you know a small business that that they can run and then that can move with them that's mobility because it's their business you know and no matter you know kind of where they move you know it's their business they can kind of set up practices they can work through the you know the galleys associated with that movement of that business so it's i i i would welcome the conversation i would i would like the opportunity to sit down and talk with you more about this in regards to the the proposal and sir uh with the with the transition readiness seminar there are three different pipes you can go through education you can go through you know the credentialing part or you can become an entrepreneur and we added two days to the transition readiness seminar to allow marines to come back after that week long process and pick which track they want to go to get some specific education and we're allowing up to 16 weeks when they get to 180 days up to 16 weeks they can go out in that profession such as you know whatever your business you want to do and you can work your way out there for 16 weeks and come back i i think you may have mentioned this last year when you testified but i i'd like a little more information on that maybe we can do that offline but it's helpful to know thank you so i think it's a great idea i really would like to see more information i think it would augment in our transition assistance program we already have the entrepreneurial entrepreneur track so i think it would augment that well i think i would also like to see us improve or boost up that entrepreneurship portion of tabs to make sure that people understood the risk and exactly what they're getting it's not for everybody right but to exclude a certain small number of people that it's for which we're kind of doing now except for some creative initiatives yes sir i think is a missing an opportunity so let's let's work on this i think it's a great idea thank you thank you mr fortenberry at this time recognize uh generally from california miss lee thank you very much let me go back now to cheek master sergeant uh right air force uh i mentioned i'm a former air force wife my son was born uh in rice the hospital in london we were stationed at um upper hatred air force base i believe is closed now but really glad glad to see all of you now i know that then in the day that um the environment was very challenging for women uh and i want to ask you specifically the same question with regard to the culture now of the air force how has it changed is it changing uh what what is there that allows for the denigration of of women serve it i heard from the the three branches the other three branches now i'd like to hear from you because uh i'm certain um there's stuff happening in the air force also and want to get to the bottom of this thank you yes thank you congresswoman so i don't believe that we have a culture that denigrates women i i do certainly understand that we have challenges with respect to sexual assault and and violence what we've done in the past few years in 2015 we established our sexual assault prevention and response strategy a five-year strategy that really shifts the focus from response to prevention in and the goal always is zero sexual assaults then we try to make sure that we'll not try but we make sure that we support uh the survivors or the victims of of the assaults when they do occur and then the third part of of that strategy is making sure that we prosecute the members if if found guilty of of these assaults uh is really based on uh for different objectives or components number one we want to educate our airmen our force about sexual assaults the impact that it has on mission readiness education is not enough we like to train our force and so we've just implemented in the last year this green dot training which has been proven in on some college campuses in other arenas which is really a peer centered type of training bystander intervention kind of center centered training but not only is education and training important we've developed and implemented some policies expedited transfer for for example so i think last year we had or in 2015 i'm sorry we had about 112 requests for expedited transfer and 99% of those were approved after a sexual assault policies are great they need to be followed up with programs with which is the fourth objective of our prevention strategy and so again i go back to the green dot we've hired violence prevention specialists actually about in the last year we've hired about 105 violence prevention specialists that will embedded our basis to help develop strategies for preventing violence at large on our air force installations and so we've done and of course you may have heard about in the last two or three years we've utilized and really developed our special victims council so we provide free legal advice to those individuals who may have been a victim of sexual assault so we're working hard to change our culture to one of dignity and respect to evolve our culture we opened up a professional profession of armed center of excellence in san Antonio which is strictly focused on character development so we've done some things and we're working hard to to make sure we maintain a culture of dignity and respect where women and all people can feel safe so thank you very much for that because i think it's important to also recognize when not only talking about sexual assault when i talk about denigration of women talking about sexual harassment intimidation you know all of the other after all of the other ways that women are denigrated and so i'm glad to hear that you're you have this understanding of what character means and attitudes toward women because it's not only in the military i mean this is throughout the country we're still dealing with with a lot of this and so i'm glad to hear that and finally let me just say mr chairman for the record i'd just like to ask that that you turn in in written testimony the effect of the president's three month freeze hiring freeze on child care centers it's my understanding that some of the child care centers may be closing or they don't know what to do given the fact i i think maxwell gunter in alabama is one in germany they received a cease care no news on the resolution yet in the rineland flots in germany we's botan in germany and also fort nox in kentucky and so i want to try to get our this committee get our hands around what's happening in terms of the freeze as it relates to child development centers on these bases you're submitting some questions for the record on yes i will submit those questions without objectionable yeah thank you very much thank you mr ryan thank you mr chairman i've got a question on the hiring freeze and its effect on uh the men and women of our military so the veteran unemployment rate is a significant risk of getting worse now because of the federal hiring freeze vets make up about 31 percent of our federal employees about a third 32.5 percent of our disabled veterans who are employed are employed by the government and life is likely to get more difficult for our service members starting in 2011 we offered an additional federal hiring preferences for our military spouses and this was essential for readiness and i know almost each of you mentioned mentioned uh family readiness uh with regard to quality of life a recent study by the university of utah found military spouses are unemployed at four times the national average 18 compared to 4.4 percent for their civilian counterparts the cost of unemployment is about a billion dollars in lost tax revenue syracuse university did a study and found high numbers of underemployment for spouses 90 percent for female spouses and on average military spouses earn 38 percent less than their counterparts so many military spouses rely on federal jobs to pay a fair wage and to keep them employed and now we have service members getting ready for permanent change of station orders and that they no doubt have to make a very difficult decision will they have to live away from their spouses or risk not being able to get a new federal job in a different city so creating these geographic bachelors is expensive for the military and hard on the families if the spouse moves with the service member the military department where the spouse works such as admin tech support departments gyms and clinics can't hire a new employee so looking ahead to the height of permanent change of station order season this is going to get a lot more challenging for you so to each of you what is the impact on our transitioning service members and military families due to the federal hiring freeze and how can we help you constant right i'd like to begin and i'll tell you up front that there is an impact so to be very honest with that but we're doing everything we can to mitigate it and many of the programs and one of the ones that i know as a concern of the committee is our child development centers and we have been given the exception to hire our cdc workers and there's a lot of other challenges faced with getting the appropriate people on there and one of my brothers mentioned that today with the cost that they offer those those cdc employees off the installation so there's other challenges associated with that that conflict the backlog of cdcs but to this day our acting secretary has already made 3,600 exceptions just for cdcs alone and over 5,500 exceptions to hire would be civilians and some of those being family members to fill critical roles on our installation so we're working through each one of them it is a by name exception for each one of those but we continue to work those to ensure we meet the most impact where's the deepest impact that you're feeling in what area what jobs the immediate impact i think was exactly what we talked about which were cdcs that has been remedied because we are doing and then the delay now is not days it's hours so the number of hours it takes for us to do a by name exception from the point of hiring all the way up to the secretary of the army that's that is literally by hours i don't know i can't tell you what the the overall impact and the impact is today but i can take that for the record quickly go through congressman first let me say i i think that these are you know systemic things that happen as a result of operating in in a budget that we've been operating in for a number of years now and to get to the hiring freeze piece of it you know what what we're maybe not understanding sometimes is the effect on the military workforce that how has the obligations to continue to provide or meet those mission requirements that we can't hire people to bring on board to do so there becomes a a change in the workload associated with the with the military counterparts we should because we still have to be successful in meeting those mission requirements the other piece of this is from the spouse employment piece of it i think outside the continental us i would venture to say that the data would support that the employment rate for spouses within the continental us is much higher than it is for those who pcs outside to a geographical location beyond you know continental us boundaries i would venture to say that that percentage is much higher that unemployment rate is much higher and situations like this absolutely will impact and and increase that unfortunate unemployment rate for them same as her our biggest concern is going to be overseas i mean we already have a problem getting you know the quality over there getting individuals to go over there then you line them up it's a long process to get there and then you go through a hiring freeze well they need to work so they walk away from that job and you start to because they're not going to wait they got to feed their family also they walk away and you got to go out and and find another you know applicant that's qualified this this is the second and third order of effect of a hiring freeze we have the same you know waivers to go and start you know getting people back into the process but just the mere fact that we did it brought an impact a backlog that affected everything across the family and the marine quality of life spectrum not just the quality of life but readiness of the force it's contracting it's everything congressman this is a double-edged sword for i believe all of us but certainly for the air force on the one hand there there will be mission requirements that may be in jeopardy of not being met because of the hiring freeze we civilians spouses transition to a different base you can't hire somebody to to fill in and then on the other hand the quality of life issue of that same spouse transitioning and not being able to be hired for the same type or an equivalent job when they get there in the stress that causes on the family and then if you throw in what we've all talked about how this is affecting our child development centers and so now not only do you have the employment issue but a child care issue tacked on top of it this this could be really bad for us so i really hope that we can work to to work through this hiring freeze and even though we have some exemptions in place and i think at least for the air force we'll get some of our exemptions through and approved by our secretary of air force but this this is again a double-edged sword for us from a mission and a quality of life standpoint thank you mr chairman okay thank you mr ryan i i have additional questions but i want to submit my questions for the record and you can respond at a later date this time i'd like to recognize the ranking member who has some additional questions thank you mr chairman and i'm going to submit the rest of my questions other than this one for the record as well sergeant major daly i was appreciative of the opportunity to talk with you in the office and uh you you mentioned that at least 22 new female officers had been approved to enter the army as second lieutenants in the infantry in the armor and branches it sounds like you have a program that sets up these these women for success and integration so can you explain what steps the army's taken to ensure that female soldiers have an opportunity to succeed in these new combat roles because comparatively the other branches of the service are in single digits and so i'm i'm hopeful that they can mirror some of your efforts congressman i'm congresswoman i can and thank you for the opportunity as i stated earlier i'm i'm proud of the efforts that we've done we started this several years ago and we did a very methodical approach to integrating our females into what was previously closed combat mls's one of the things that we did is we first took a look at what are the high physical demands required of a service member regardless of their gender and we made a baseline of those physical demands with those physical demands our medical experts as well as our training experts work together put together what is a predictive task it's called the opat the operational physical assessment and testing and the way we're going to demonstrate success by this is we're going to make sure that every single soldier regardless of their gender who wants to join one of our high physically demand military occupational skills for the future will be pre-qualified through their entry system whether an officer analysis soldier with this opat and we know out of scientific proof that when they demonstrate their potential to achieve this opat successful at the level required for the mls that they want to join into that demonstrates a significant increase in their capability to successfully complete the training that's required for that mls so far we have demonstrated success as i mentioned before this is one of the highest years in 14 that we've recruited females in united states army and we have over 400 of our enlisted soldiers scheduled for training in our combat arms training center at four bending door to this year currently around 50 of our females are in training we have three of our females that are currently in ranger school as you know we had three successfully graduate in the past and we are going to be a principal on leaders first in those organizations where those combat arms females will go for the first time and that is we will have two female leaders in those organizations down to the company level prior to any of the young female recruits showing up for the first time and we know that having those female role models and mentors at those institutions prior to them being there will also demonstrate success for the future thank you and to the rest of the the officers here um are there any obstacles to your branch of the service implementing similar programs to make it more likely and set women who desire these roles in your branch of the service to succeed no ma'am not for the navy i think we're doing extremely well we don't have obstacles ma'am i don't understand what you mean by obstacles what i mean is the army seems to be having success because of the programs that they have implemented to set who desire these roles up for success are there any obstacles to you that you foresee implementing similar programs to make it more likely that a woman desiring a combat role would succeed that was my question thank you ma'am we have hundreds of women in combat arms MOS's are you speaking specifically to infantry ma'am there's a difference in the success rate yes in the marines versus the army yes ma'am the standards are different in my office yes ma'am you didn't seem to indicate that there were any programs in place to make it more likely that women who are desiring those roles have an opportunity to succeed so i was asking are there any obstacles that you are aware of that would prevent you from implementing a similar programs to set women up for success this i can't i can't tell you we're going to do the same thing the army is doing ma'am i can tell you as i told you in in in your office we're looking at the same programs they have the mission of the marine corps different um the physical fitness test for instance of the in the army and the marine corps two totally different because of the standards um we're we're at a hundred and you know 73 bases um embassies around the world the the army doesn't have marine expeditionary units the army's not asked to do some of the things that the marine corps does um the congress told us to be most ready when the nation is least ready so you forward deployed us in order to outpace the enemy we think our standards are where they need to be uh things we put in a place for the entire marine corps both male and female are standards in those mos and then so we start to train yes sir major i'm not questioning your standards i was asking about whether or not it was possible for you to implement programs similar to those that the army has implemented to make it more likely not yet to for women to achieve those those standards that you've established yes ma'am we have we have programs that we put in place we've looked at recruit training and and OCS officer candidate school we look at the at the nutritional value of what a female marine candidate or recruit receive as he said with with our medical corps of the navy and we realized that there's a nutritional value that's missing so we've implemented that we submitted that to your office our our our plan to do that or it's in place now as a matter of fact as of a couple of months ago we've also moved our pft and cft standards across the marine corps because we realized after 15 years of fighting we must be better to go into the next fight so we put a force fitness program in place that deals with kinesiology anatomy and nutrition sleep etc to educate the entire force that will also get at the female marine force it's really an educational thing and understanding that men and women are different but what can we do to enhance our female marines that give them the same opportunities those are the programs that we're putting in place thank you and i would suggest that you look at the army's programs because they seem to be working that's no obstacles from the air force ma'am thank you before we conclude i just want to mention that the this subcommittee has a a planned visit to the washington dcva medical center on monday march 20th so for the staff please remind your members um that's a that's a get-back day so member staff and schedulers should have that on on their calendars and i certainly encourage all members to attend if possible it's going to be very informative as always and i'm really looking forward to it we'll be sending out an agenda for that on friday so with that this concludes this morning's hearing thank you thank you all