Good afternoon, everyone. How awesome and magical is it to be at the 2022 AUSA annual meeting and we're in person and online? So thank you so much for coming to the senior leaders town hall. We're so appreciative that you're here. I want to also say a special thank you to the Washington Tattoo if you were able to hear them as you were coming in and to our mascots who are out at the door. What top class they add to our family forum. At this time we would like to recognize our family forum three title sponsor, the Wounded Warrior Project. The continuous support the Wounded Warrior Project provides to our wounded, ill, injured service members, veterans and their families is truly truly appreciated. Representing the Wounded Warrior Project today is Lieutenant General retired Mike Lenington, CEO. Sir. Jose Ramis, Vice President, Government and Community Relations. John Eaton, Vice President Complex Care. Bria Kratzer, Vice President, Resource Development and Business Development. And Zachariah Pearson, Corporate Partnership Specialist. Thank you, thank you so much to our title sponsor, the Wounded Warrior Project. Thank you. Now we would like to recognize the AUSA Volunteer Family of the Year. The AUSA Volunteer Family of the Year Award recognizes an exceptional Army family whose dedicated volunteer service promotes the well-being of soldiers and families and improves their local community. To be considered for the award though, the family can only be nominated through one of our wonderful all-volunteer-run AUSA 120 chapters. We would like to bring, now the family doesn't know this, this is a surprise, we would like to bring up on stage the family of the year to join me. I apologize, the sponsor for the Family of the Year Award was not able to make it, but they do have a surprise for you later tonight and I'll show that with you. But if you would like to join me up here on stage, I would appreciate it. The Thomas Searle family embodies the phrase staying ready together. They share their time and talents as a family, right with their soldier and family readiness groups. Thank you. Habitat for humanity, the American Red Cross, spearheading the 161st Vietnam Veterans Reunion and hosting the Gold Star Teen Adventure to name a few of all the things they do together as a family. AUSA's Fort Jackson Palmetto State Chapter nominated the Thomas Searle family when they were stationed at Fort Jackson. But like all military families, they have PCS and they are now at Joint Base Lewis McCord, Washington. The Thomas Searle family includes Sergeant First Class Timothy Thomas Searle, his wife Amanda and their three adorable children, Timothy Jr., who is 15, Zoe who's 13, and 11 year old Mackenzie. They are also the 2021 Fort Jackson family of the year. It is with heartfelt gratitude that the AUSA Family Readiness Directorate and the Volunteer Family of the Year Program sponsor, Veterans United Home Loans, presents you with a token of appreciation to include this wonderful gift up here, a monetary gift, and for the first time in support of our military spouse employment and internship offer to Mrs. Thomas Searle. Thank you so much. So thank you to the Thomas Searle family for your outstanding leadership, your generosity, and commitment to the military community. We'll be able to make sure we ship that to you. I don't think it'll go home on the plane. Thank you. Next I would like to introduce our moderator, Lieutenant General Kevin Vareen. He is the new Deputy Chief of Staff for Installations G9. Lieutenant General Vareen is the Principal Advisor to Army Senior Leaders on Installation Policy, Plans and Resources, which include housing, childcare, and other quality of life programs for all components. Installation Armories and Reserve Centers serve as the Army's foundation and support for the readiness and well-being of soldiers, civilians, families, and soldiers for life. Sir, thank you so much for agreeing to be the moderator today for the Town Hall, and welcome, Lieutenant General Vareen. So good afternoon. Before we begin, I want to take the opportunity to thank the USA and recognize Holly for all the work she's done on these family forums. They provide a great opportunity for those problems that are facing our people. So I want to thank you for being a great partner and advocate for our soldiers and families. It is definitely my honor to moderate this year's AUSA Army Senior Leader Town Hall. Army families make selfless contributions to strengthening our brave warriors and nation's defense. They play an important part in mission readiness. The Army is committed to providing care, support, and services necessary to ensure a ready Army. So at this time, please give a warm Army welcome to our Army Senior Leaders. First, I'd like to introduce the Honorable Christine E. Wormuth, the 25th Secretary of the Army. Honorable Wormuth is the senior official within the Department of Defense on all matters relating to the U.S. Army and has over 20 years of experience working in the field of national security and defense. Secretary Wormuth is here to provide an update on all the hard work the Army is doing in support of our families and their quality of life. She is married to a retired Navy officer and has two daughters. Don't hold it against me. I emphasize that, Madam Secretary. The 40th Chief of Staff of the Army, General James McConville, is also here to share his insights on his efforts to improve readiness and quality of life programs for our soldiers, families, Army civilians, and soldiers for life. I also want to recognize his wife of 35 years, Maria McConville. Kuduchee also credits as being the foundation and string of the family. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that they have three children who are serving in the Army and a son-in-law who also serves. Let's give a round of applause for that. Finally, the 16th Sergeant Major of the Army, better known as Alexandra's husband and father of two amazing women. Sergeant Major of the Army, Michael Grinston, brings his perspective on soldier and family support and its direct influence upon Army readiness. The SMA is currently championing initiatives focusing on the exceptional family member program, improving access to meaningful spouse employment, child care, and housing, and expanding support for soldiers who are single parents. SMA Grinston, thank you for joining us this afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, give a round of applause for our families. So Honorable Warmth will provide opening remarks followed by General McConville and then the Sergeant Major of the Army, Sergeant Major Grinston. Good afternoon, everybody.  I am very, very pleased to be here. I want to thank all of you, all of our great families for making it possible for our soldiers and NCOs and officers to do everything they do. I've had the opportunity in the last year and a half to talk with a lot of families and to better appreciate the tremendous support system that they are and all the sacrifices that our Army families do to be able to serve in the Army. I want to recognize the Tomasora family, our family of the year, who we were able to give the award to yesterday. That was fantastic. Thank you, all of you, for everything you do. I talked quite a bit yesterday morning in the speech for the opening ceremonies about the Army of 2030. A lot of that was talking about what the Army of 2030 has to be able to do in order to fight and win the nation's wars. A lot of it was about war fighting and our modernization program. I also spent a lot of time talking about the Army of 2030 and what that means in terms of its people. Frankly, if we don't have the best people and if we don't take care of our people, it won't really matter even if we develop the most amazing new weapons systems and technologies. People really are the backbone of this Army and we have to take care of our folks. Secretary Austin, I hope all of you have had the opportunity to see his Taking Care of People memo that came out in the last couple of weeks. He is very, very committed as a former Army general. He is, I think, very in tune to our service members' needs and the things that are on their minds. That set of initiatives is an effort to try to make sure that we are taking care of our folks. I would say that as a down payment. We certainly, General McConville and I, the SMA, want to continue to make sure that we're doing everything we possibly can to give you all the resources and support that you need. I've had the opportunity to talk to a lot of folks at posts around the country. I've heard quite a bit about inflation, about the rising costs of housing, about barracks conditions, about access to childcare, access to healthcare and mental health resources. We are really working to try to make sure that we make that available to you. Part of the reason we have this great forum is to be able to hear from you and solve problems. I would ask all of you that as we work to try to solve some of these problems, that we keep the channels of communication open. We're better positioned to be able to help you if we know what help is needed. So please make sure that you're reaching out and letting us know what your concerns are. Again, I won't sort of go over all the stuff that I talked about yesterday morning. Recognizing that there is absolutely always more work that needs to be done. We are investing in better housing. We are working day in, day out with the CEOs of our privatized housing companies to make sure that they are supporting you all. We are building new child development centers. We are paying our CDC staff more. We are trying a variety of sort of recruiting and retention incentives to try and hire more staff into our CDCs. We have rolled out the new enhanced EMFP portal to try to streamline enrollment and make that process less burdensome. So there's a lot I think that we're doing to try to support all of you and our families. But my main message is we're going to keep working on it. Over to you, Chief. And thanks, sir. Just real quick because as Secretary, we want to get to your questions. But you know, in the Army, we say people first. We don't say soldiers first. And the reason we say that is we talk about our people. We're talking about our soldiers, our families, our civilians and our soldiers for life. And we recruit soldiers, but we retain families. And that is really important. And what really, when you look at the leaders, 89 percent of our sergeants above have families. So if we want to retain the talent that we need to do what we need to do, that's why this is extremely important. And we are far from perfect when it comes to taking care of our families. But this forum, at least for me, has been very, very helpful. Getting the feedback we get from you. Some of the problems we'll be able to solve right away. Some long-term problems. But we are definitely interested in getting your feedback, understanding that and making sure we maintain the world's greatest army. So, Sergeant Major. Secretary Chief, thanks for having me. And I thoroughly enjoy these family forums. I've had them mostly, almost around the globe. So I'll open up with what I normally open up with. And the Secretary Chief normally may not like that. I want to hear your hard problems and your challenging topics. And normally, I challenge everybody for that. And they do normally not disappoint. So not at all. Sometimes they do not hold any punches. But it's for all the right things, because I want to be able to bring those issues, whether that's those issues out at Fort Irwin. And I see General Taylor, we had a couple of turns at the families. They took a couple of body shots at me out there all the way to Fort Stewart when I talked to those, the families when we just did a no-notice deployment for the first brigade of the Third ID. The first time since I've been in the Army, we did a no-notice deployment of an Army Brigade Combat Team. So we have to hear those. We have to hear those challenging topics where we're not going to get the policy and the money in the right spot. And that's always why I lead that if you hold back, then I'm sure the Secretary of the Army would be very sad if you held back on your questions. But we do like to action it. And there's some things that we've looked into that I think have just come from things that I've been traveling around and we all have. And one of those is a parenthood policy. That's how we change the policy. And it goes, it went from a small family forum where somebody said, it's our major. Here's some of the things we're dealing with with the family. And then they sent me a really nice letter and email. And then we worked on this and then out pops a parenthood policy. Same thing with the Enterprise Exceptionally Family Member Program. It really stemmed from PCC. And the Chief and I were sitting there and somebody said, how do we do assignments if we have an EFNP program? And how do we modernize that? When the marketplace, I can't see that I can go to that place because I don't know if my family can be supported in that area. So those are the things we're championing. But it all comes from your feedback. So I look forward to your feedback. And then more importantly, I look forward to handing all those off to the director of the Army staff to help us with those. Madam Secretary T. I look forward. And for everyone, I look forward to your questions. All right. That was a great segue into questions. So we're going to get ready for if you have a question, there's some rules for one of our senior leaders. I would ask that you use the question cards that were provided for you or you can raise your hand and one of our staff will bring a microphone to you. I also ask that you be concise with your questions so we can address as many questions as possible. We also have people in the back of the room monitoring and streaming webcasts for questions. So we'll take some of those from our viewers as well. And I will be reading some of the questions to you from the podium as well. So let's get started. All right. The first question. All right. So as we continue to reduce the stigma of help seeking behavior around mental illness, do you believe we are getting closer to treating mental illness like any other disease? I'll take that for starters, I guess.  I have gotten divorced and remarried. I had teenagers. I'm guessing some of you have teenagers, you know, all good reasons sometimes to go and see a counselor and get help. And so, you know, I really try to encourage and get the message out that taking advantage of behavioral health resources is actually a sign of strength, not a vulnerability. It's helping yourself solve a problem. And there's nothing to be ashamed about when it comes to doing that. You know, we are, I think, doing a better job of making behavioral health resources available. You know, certainly when we saw some serious signs of strain in Alaska, working with the chaplain with our conflicts and others, we surged resources there. General Eiffler started the mission 100 where everyone in the 11th airborne division does a mental health wellness check on an annual basis. And I think we see that helping and we're doing that in some other places. One of the biggest challenges we have though is, you know, nationwide we have a shortage of behavioral health resources. And so, you know, the pandemic's been hard on everyone. And I think one of the biggest things we've got to keep working on is trying to increase the capacity of the behavioral health resources that are available for our folks, particularly in more remote locations where it can be harder to hire civilians, you know, places like Fort Irwin, for example. Yeah, I just think we need to, in some ways, and I've talked to, you know, parents who have lost their sons and daughters. And one of the best insights I got was from a Gold Star mother who said, you know, along the lines of, you know, people don't commit heart disease, they die of heart disease. Think about that.  So if someone has a problem with heart disease, they don't hesitate to go see a doctor. And I think there's some people that are higher risk for heart disease because of maybe, you know, genes and those type things, but there's also people that are higher risk for heart disease because of maybe some of their, you know, what they eat or they smoke or they don't exercise all those type things. And I think it's the same thing, you know, we start thinking about mental health is, you know, we need to have resources available. And just like heart disease, if you go, if you treat it early on, when things are just starting to develop, I think we can save a lot more lives. And so we are committed to making sure that health care is available.  And I think we need to continue to do that. Sir, I'll try to keep my remarks short. Here's one. This is a really difficult topic that we've really been studying for a little while. And I will frame it is that number one, it's okay to seek mental health. I did it. I've announced it a couple of times in November. And recently I asked to go back. It was a tough summer in the Greenstone family. And I said, Well, maybe it's time for me to go get another check up. And I did ask to put me back on the docket. So everybody, it's okay to seek help if you need help. But I do want to caution you is that that is not the panacea for all your problems. And I say that because we are human beings. And this is just what I believe the connections matter. You can't just have one. If you only have one and it's only that connection to behavioral health, I think we're all at risk to something. And the more connections you have, the better. So we can't just say, Oh, just go to behavioral health. Well, but if you have no friends, you have no family going behavioral health, you know, I think you're still at a risk for a lot of things. And I think what I find is leaders sometimes go, Well, you went to behavioral health. Good to go. And if you haven't read a book by Dr. Greg Bryan, Rethinking Suicide, I encourage y'all to do that. And what he says is that we're all at risk.  Maybe seek behavioral health. Maybe you can talk to a chap with maybe go to the inflect. I think that's when we use all the resources that we have, I think we're all going to be in a better mental state. But we can't just use only one resource. And that only one resource gets me to behavioral health. But there's a whole ton of other resources. And some of those resources are your family, your friends, your golf buddies, your running partners, your chief of staff, the army, right? That's your squad. And I really caution us all is that sometimes it's like, go seek behavioral health, we're good, you went to behavioral health. And we can't figure out why you're still having a lot of issues because we're not connecting all the dots. Again, it's 100% okay to seek behavioral health. I still have my TS clearance. I still get to go to all the meetings. I still get to be the service army. Oh, and maybe not nevermind. Okay, next question. How does EFMP work with command management division when generating the command select list? That is a more detailed question than I am able to answer on my own. So I would look out and it's a little bit hard to see. I don't know whether General Vareen, you want to take that? Or if we have someone from our G9, HRC? Madam Secretary? Oh, go for it. I'll start because there's an enlisted part of this too. So for the command select list for the CSM, so please 100% update your EFMP in the system. There's a lot of SAR majors. As Master's when you go to CSL for battalion and brigade, if you don't have that updated, it's hard for us to go. Let's go for this assignment. So what the goal is to look at the assignments and then for the CSM, I'm just talking about the CSM program and HRC or G1 can correct me if I say anything messed up. But we look at that and try to say, okay, this is where you can go. But if your EFMP is not updated, it makes it a lot harder. And yes, we have some of those. But we look at where you're going, what are the resources. But then there is a choice. And we chief, you and I remember, we've heard this at PCC, we've had this debate, like Sergeant Major, we'll just take all those assignments if I can't go there with my family on. And some people say, wait a minute, I always wanted to be this, whatever this is. And if that can't support where you go, do you want us to make that choice? Or do you want to have that choice? So we could say you don't get to go to be the 4th Brigade 101st because that doesn't support your family. And they can't, they don't have the capacity. So from the list aside, we're very cautious of that. When we look at the CSMs, but the biggest thing is please update your EFMP in the system. So then when we're doing, here's a battalion available or brigade that it will support your family. Yeah. Is a G1 here? Okay. Yeah. I want to say something. I'm going to turn over you for the final on the slating thing. We want to give people an opportunity to serve wherever we can support them serve. And some people say, why don't you just know that Fort Carson is this? And it really, the challenge becomes, and this is where as we do a better job of getting a 21st century talent management system, we will know because assignments will get updated very, very quickly. But if you think about it right now, people go, well, how come you can't tell me whether I can go here or not? Depending on, you know, your dependent situation, it may be because it's depending on a specialist. So that specialist that happened to work at Fort Carson that does absolutely all the things that you need for your child's care may move. And then all of a sudden we don't have that specialist there. But what we want to do and where we're trying to go is get to that level of fidelity where we know exactly where everything is. And as you go into the marketplace, wherever you're going, you know exactly what that is. And we can work our way through it. So Roy, you want to add anything to that? Yes, I will. So, sir, the Sergeant Major hit it right on the head. We're taking in information now. We have a new system, EFMP out there that makes it a lot easier to put it in there. But all of those things come into play as we're looking in the assignments. There are care providers out there that we may know about now, but say for mental health, they've got too many patients. So we have to bring all of those things into play. But the very first step is us knowing what exactly that the individual and the family needs. Okay. All right. This question is probably OTSG to follow up if there's some responses from the panel. So how will care and access to resources change with the medical treatment facility medical billet cuts? Yeah, I think that's definitely one for the wonderful General Scotty Dingell. Sir, you want my mic? The one thing that I will say is that when the Secretary and the Chiefs say that people are first, they mean that. And so for many of you all seen in the press that initially the number was 6,900 plus military billets cut from the Medcom. It was the Chief and the Secretary who said, General Dingell, no. I'm not going to do that because I am impacting the readiness of our soldiers and our family members. And then so we redid the assessment. The number was brought down to 2,900 plus. Those 2,900 that have been identified are from my Medcom billets. And those are low risk that do not impact any of the services that are being provided at any of our medical treatment facilities. With that said, of course, in the NDAA there were stipulations that we cannot make any cuts until approved by the Hill and we've laid it out. We've run the numbers. There is no impact to the cuts that we have identified. We also are working with the Defense Health Agency to increase, I know, the big ones, behavioral health, not cutting any military behavioral health, where there are challenges of behavioral health at our remote areas. That's where myself as the Surgeon General leverage our uniform personnel to fill some of those civilian hard-to-hire billets. Overseas likewise, the guidance from the Secretary and the Chief to me is to move my military personnel to provide more capacity and capability, in this case, behavioral health, Alaska, and other remote areas. So there are no cuts as of yet, but when the cuts do come, if they come, there will be no impact to the services that will be provided on medical treatment facilities. Yeah, here's some, at least from the Chief Staff, the Army. We want to make sure that our soldiers, our families, and soldiers for life are getting the health care they deserve. And, you know, we are in transitions and transitions are always dangerous times and, you know, people moving various, you know, plans and beneficiary plans and who's getting what we're and what we need is your feedback. So if you're in an area where you've been, you know, put out, you know, in the civilian community and we're not getting you the health care that you need, we need to know that. And, you know, as Scotty said, we will move people to make sure we have the appropriate medical capability. Some of you may be better served by, you know, the type of medical care you're getting, but we need to know that. And if you don't come back to us and let us know we won't know, we will move our medical personnel, provide that type of care. And we are, you know, and the other thing is bringing back up a try care doesn't provide for this or, you know, the medical plan we have, you know, yeah, we have, we have medical insurance, but it doesn't work. No one will take it. And we, you know, to me, you know, we have a sacred obligation to provide medical care to our soldiers, our families and our soldiers for life. And we are committed to doing that. Okay. All right. I guess what goes around comes around. So it's a G9 probably. This is going to be interesting. All right. So, so we heard about community connections this morning. And ACS is the most effective organization to connect families to resources. ACS has been cut a lot in the last several years. Is the Army going to evaluate if the ACS cuts were too much? You know, let me start with that, Kevin, and then turn it over to you as you like. You know, as the chief said, similar to healthcare, we want to make sure that our folks have what they need and have the support services that they need. So every time we build the POM, we try to dig into, you know, the issues enough to be able to understand and make informed choices about where there are tradeoffs. And I think, you know, that's that is something we have a processes underway where we can actually sort of go in and do deep dives into issue areas. And I think, you know, that's something we can look at the connections program, whether we've got the level of resources there right. Because I heard it was, you know, it's a great program. I heard there was a terrific session this morning. And so we want to make sure that we're not cutting into bone, certainly. Yeah, one of the things that, you know, I've learned a bunch of different posts is, is really the services that ACS for providing, one size doesn't fit all. And, you know, I remember being a, you know, a post senior commander at a post and we had like 513 programs.  We want to afford the ones that really make a difference.  We've had some of those type things where we cut some, some key people and organizations. And we just need to make sure we know what they are. And we can, you know, there are always opportunities to bring them back if we missed it. But we, you know, we are taking a look at those type things. So I made an answer. I'll highlight two areas that you could help us out. And I would actually ask for help. You know, ACS is a fairly broad topic. You know, I would ask for more specificity. Like, what function did we cut? Not for now. And you can send that to me. My team will love that. Please, like, seriously. That's number one is, please let us know as we travel around in those family forums. And you're meeting with this, our major army said, Hey, you cut this, you know, why did you do that? And let's have a discussion and not, you know, generalize just ACS. It actually helps us what inform us on what specifically in your area that you cut that maybe we need to bring back. That's number one. And then number two, we still have the Army Family Action Program. The vice chairs that. And I know the DAS has shared it a couple of times with me and those from your installation, these things come up and said, Hey, we cut this. And then we need to look at it from the Department of Army all the way through senior mission command authority. So there's two ways to get these issues bubbled up if we're cutting something. Just let us know. But I, you know, I would just ask to say, Hey, it was this in the ACS, not all ACS. And it may be specific, like the chief said for your location. All right. I think this is a great topic to take back. And we'll take this one on a task force. We've got over 80 folks on our task force for quality of life. And this is one we'll definitely dig into and make sure that we're advised the right way. But it's all about feedback. And so we appreciate any feedback you could provide to us. And then we'll take that with us as well. So thank you. Okay, we got a question in the room. Yes. Thank you so much. First of all, for all the steamed panelists, I have been a long standing volunteer with the Association of the US Army out of Kuwait since 2007. And as a result, I have been in exposure with many soldiers, things related to the mental health and physical health. And coincidentally, I'm also a volunteer in cancer patient support and prevention since 2012. So I needed to make a comment that there is a gray area between the physical health and mental health. And that goes into stress management and connecting to people and caring about people and seeing what the army here is doing and the budget that has been allocated for physical and wellness in general, both mental and physical is impressive. So I just needed to commend you on that and to draw the attention of prevention. Just something simple as awareness about stress management, recognizing it and connecting to people can be a defining line between anything that can be preventable in both physical and mental health. And they really interact with each other. What we eat can impact our mood and how we think can go the other way around. So thank you. Thank you. It's great to hear and we have invested in the risk and resilience councils, the health and holistic fitness. I think there's a lot more understanding just as you said as the connection between sort of mental health and physical health and all of that. And it really can make a difference. So it's good to hear that you think you're seeing some results out there. And Madam Secretary, I'll put a shameless plug for the Army Wellness Centers. If you haven't visited those Army Wellness Centers, they have stress management. They do classes. It's one of my favorite places to go. They give you some meditation. They've got this really great chair that sits in there. And so Bellvor, it's just like they guard the door for 10 minutes. This Army Army gets to get some meditation and goes into the massage chair and those sore muscles and a little bit of meditation. But that's what I'm talking about. What I was talking about earlier is that we sometimes we're not using all the resources that we have. We have Army Wellness Center and they have stress management. You know, I was trying to get one like now we have a water down or a less or a different version of that in the Pentagon. But I said, no, no, we really need this in the Pentagon. But there is that Bellvor. We have them all across the nation actually across the globe. We have these Wellness Centers and sometimes they're not utilized to the fullest extent. We have it, but you have to use it. Okay. All right. The next question. Could you talk about how the Army's new recognition of spiritual readiness supports holistic health and overall readiness? Well, I think that goes a little bit to the sort of broader topic we were just talking about is that, you know, I think there is a sort of a mind, body, spiritual connection. And, you know, I know the Chaplain Solgium has spent a lot of time on this with our Chaplain Corps. You know, spirituality can be different for different people, obviously, but there's a lot of research that shows that having sort of, you know, a spiritual focus can be very beneficial for your mental and physical health. And so I think that's something that's a dimension that we're trying to draw out. And I don't know, Chaplain Solgium, if you maybe want to say a few words, because again, I know this is something you're really passionate about. Yeah, I think, thank you, Madam Secretary. So we just have been sitting here listening. I'm observing. We talked, and we talked about this this morning. I see the smile, isn't it? You know where I'm going to go with this, right? So we're very comfortable talking physical. We're very comfortable talking mental. We get a little squishy when it comes to things spiritual. So just let me give context, right? Every person in this room is spiritual. Science, evidence-based science says all people are born spiritual. 30% innate, 70% the environment. So if you think about our army and its people and what they bring, spiritually prepared and ready or not. And then what we have is a responsibility as an organization, the opportunity to develop the other 70%. The army is leading the nation in this area. So I'm very proud of our army. I couldn't be more proud that the army has taken this on holistic health and fitness and actually integrated and given us two things. A common understanding or operating picture of what spiritual is. And then a language to be able to communicate it to our soldiers and families. So I thank you for your leadership and for this endeavor. And the nation is really looking to the army in this area. Thank you. Chaplain, I do want to say thing, and I've heard this several times from all the soldiers sometimes. When you hear spiritual, sometimes your brain thinks religion. We're actually talking about two different things. Spiritual, do you believe in something bigger than yourself? And then when we find people that actually have those connections that believe in something bigger than themselves. I think the statistic, what was it Chaplain, 90% less likely to commit suicide. I mean, this is a statistical fact. What was it? Can you hear me? Oh, there we go. The statistical facts are that when it comes to all start with suicide, you're 80% more protected from suicide when you have a strong spiritual core. When you couple that, you know, give me some of that 80%. I'll take it. And then when you couple that with a personal faith and belief of something outside of yourself, right, and then you shared in community with others, it's almost off the charts. You're the most protected. So if you think of our soldiers, you think of the harmful behaviors, the other areas, whether it's depression or risk taking behaviors or substance abuse, the numbers are the same there. So the science really shows that spiritual life, spiritual wellness and wholeness and well being are absolutely critical to the outcomes that we're striving as an army to get after. And if you haven't said through one of the initiatives from the Chaplain on this, he's gone to cap posts and stations. It's impactful. I think it's Dr. Lisa Miller usually does that presentation. And if you haven't, you could probably probably YouTube some of that. And I encourage you all to look at that. And it's different. And some soldiers go, it's all it's religion. It's a little different. And I'd ask you to look into that. It's, it's really well done. Okay. All right. Thank you. Next question. What can soldiers for life, our retirees, our veterans do directly in helping the army attract young talent into the army?  We want you to inspire other young men and women to serve. And this is really important because our soldiers for life are running around communities, the retirees of veterans. And, you know, what we find is 83% of the soldiers that come in the army come from military family. And so we have to do all we can to expose our army to the American public. 44% come from JROTC high schools. And so, you know, at least we're going out and asking our soldiers for life, help us expose the army to young men and women in your community and encourage them to serve because there's really no better place that you can be all you can be. Thank you. All right. Okay. Next question. This one is pretty interesting here. All right. Seriously. Okay. JBLM has a housing crisis. Families are struggling. Most housing lists have a six to 12 month wait list. Off post, many landlords are taking advantage of local BAH rates and overcharging for rent. On top of this, finance has been taking six plus weeks to adjust BAH rates after a PCS. There are even volunteer ran food pantries popping up on posts to ensure our families can eat. What can be done for incoming families? Why don't I talk about this sort of at the strategic level and particularly I know since SMA has spent time at JBLM. You know, you may want to say some things that are more tailored. You know, first of all, I would start with, you know, we know we have some housing challenges and we are really trying to work on them. We are really trying to work closely with the privatized companies who are doing housing at places like JBLM and elsewhere I saw. We have got General Omar Jones here, our installation command CG. He meets I think every single week with the CEOs to go sort of family by family, who is out of houses, who is getting into houses. I met personally with the CEOs myself about a month or two ago and one of the things I really tried to emphasize with to them is making sure that they have quality maintenance staff who are coming in and handling the work orders in a timely way with a customer service attitude. That is really, really important I think in terms of tenant satisfaction. You know, we passed the tenant bill of rights with the 18 tenants at all of our installations where we have privatized housing. One of the challenges we have though is, you know, we have got to find some creative ways to work with those companies to be able to see them invest more in the housing. So we are working hard on that with IMCOM, with IE&E. We are very aware of the situation at JBLM and I know we have got issues at Fort Leonard Wood, at Fort Gordon and those end at Fort Carson. So we are actively really trying to get after that set of issues. I don't know, as a mayor chief, if you want to elaborate. I will just add one thing. As a secretary, about 35 percent of our families live on post. So even if we get the whole post right, which we are trying to do is we still have about 65 percent of our troops living off post. And you know, what has really been tough in specialty places, you know, we have a son at JBLM so we are aware of living, who lives off post and going through those processes.  And, you know, we could talk about, there are some some authorizations that are in place to help folks, as far as on temporary living allowances, to try to get those things. But again, we have not solved that problem. We are raising BHA. It is something that still has, but it takes time and it takes effort. And we are trying to get after that. So I don't know if you are going to talk about, you know, the authorizations that are different or what we can do. SMA, before you start, can I just add something back in? Because I realized BAH was part of the question. And I see we have got under secretary for personnel and readiness from OSD, Mr. Gilsis-Narrows, and thank you so much for coming, Secretary Cisneros, and being part of this conversation. One of the things that we are doing is working with OSD to really look at how BAH is calculated and sort of what are the anchor points that go into that? And what are the assumptions that go into utility rates, for example? Because I think part of what we have got to look at is, does the way we calculate BAH, you know, really incorporate some of the inflation costs that we have seen in the last couple of years. So that is something that we are really working on with OSD to try to get after this issue as well. Madam Secretary, thanks. I have got a whole list, but I will just caveat a couple of things. First of all, please, please read what the Secretary of Defense just put out on taking care of our people. Some of that was addressed, and we just have to know. You do not have to wait.  You are going to have to apply for that. That is number one. That is already there. It is already approved. It is coming. But if you do not know and you do not apply, the soldiers are frustrated. So please read through that one more time, because some of that is being handled. Extended temporary lodging allowance. It can go longer so you can stay in a hotel. And nobody likes to stay in a hotel. I understand that. But you have to know what entitlements are so that we, some of this was addressed. And then, lastly, it is what Madam Secretary said is how we calculate it, but also when we calculate BAH. And I have said this a couple of times. It cannot only be once a year. It needs to be a little bit more reactive. But what is that? And as we get to a digital age, how can we calculate BAH? Maybe twice a year, right before the PCS season.  And the Secretary of Defense has addressed some of those issues. But it is still a struggle. And again, we often do not talk about this, but I just need to make sure as we receive people on our installations, we have to sponsor them well. We have the resources in ACS that will help you find affordable living in an area. But if you don't go there, you don't know about it. And I know another former JBLM was the First Corps commander, which was the vice. And he set up a special office to help folks as they transition because of all the resources that we have. So please, in this case, if you're struggling, go to ACS. There are some resources on, especially JBLM and all your installations. And that can help you in that transition. But we will need some help.  But this is a complete department issue, and we need to address it. Okay. All right. Next question. We encourage suicide prevention for our soldiers. However, it's the family who sees the first sign. How can we better educate families on suicide prevention? Can we include child suicide prevention? The numbers of child suicides are staggering. That's a great question. Because obviously, all of those kinds of things, it becomes a family dynamic. And often, a family member will see a sign potentially sooner, perhaps, than squadmates might at work. So I think we absolutely need to make sure that the programs we have focused on suicide prevention can include family members, so that we can talk to family members about the spirituality issues that the chaplain was talking about, that we can help people see what the indicators might be, that there's a problem. A lot of times when we look at instances of suicide in our army, we see that it's connected to either financial challenges, substance abuse, marital issues often. And so I think what we need to do also is really make sure that our families know that we have resources. If you're having some of those issues in your family, if you're struggling with financial management, we have resources that can help you, both with immediate issues, like our emergency relief programs, which can help with loans and grants, but also longer-term financial planning. So we just need to make sure that we're informing families about the resources we have that can help with some of those underlying stressors. Yeah, the one thing, Sergeant Major, I talk a lot about the squad and the Golden Triangle, and I think we as leaders at every level have an obligation to build connections between our soldiers and our leaders, making sure that every soldier has a buddy that cares about them, every soldier's family knows who they can call when there's a problem. And with a lot of suicide situations, the family knows someone's not sleeping well, things not going well at home, but they really don't know who to call. There's not a connection there. And again, if we can identify these challenges early on, then we can get the appropriate help and get after that, Sergeant Major. Just a few points here, and I'm really glad you talked about my squad and knowing your squad mates. I would even take it one step further. As you receive people into your organization, step one is know their family, and they need to know who to call. And we've got a lot of initiatives all the way from basic training and AIT. And how do we inform families on who to call? And sometimes it's like when a soldier goes to basic training, it's like the family is like, I don't know, the Army. Okay, so we're looking at ways that we can post information on social media, and it may not just be related to suicide. Just who to call. So as we get better at reception and integration into our units, that's the key. And we receive not just the soldier, but the family and the extended family. And we need to know who those are. And that's the chiefs talking about going to triangle.  And I'll ask the G none is I know we do have family life counselors in schools. I know we had one in man, middle school up in JBLM. And I know we had one, I think Washington Liberty. But I don't know is that in every school, you know, where a post is, but I know they have some, I just don't know where they're at. And those are just for our children to have somebody to talk to at school. So you could see a counselor that deals with military children issues. That's not the end I'll do all, but that is a resource that may not be well known. And I don't know if you got more on that. We do D. Can you answer that? We SMA, we can get you by location where we have our embedded military family life consultants. And they are in our school, they work in our CDCs, they work in our communities to make those connections. We can get you more details on there. Okay. All right. This is next question. The notoriously slow and burdensome federal hiring process for civilians presents a tremendous barrier to military spouses seeking employment. What steps is the army taking to make sure it can become faster for military spouses seeking employment as army civilians? That is a great question. You know, I think I will give it to the G1 to get specifically into how we can do better. I mean, in some cases we are seeking direct hiring authorities. So for example, you know, the prevention specialists that we're trying to hire in fairly large numbers across a lot of our installations, all three compos, I think we're seeking direct hiring authorities. We are, I would say more broadly before turning it to the G1, on the issue of spouse employment more broadly, we really are trying to do everything we possibly can here. You know, we are trying to get the word out about the fact that we will reimburse folks up to a thousand dollars for professional licensing. And a good number of states now around the country have laws on the books to make licensing portable from state to state. We are investing in a number of different sort of fellowship programs to try to match spouses who want employment with available opportunities in the private sector. So there, you know, we are certainly trying to work on those issues, but it is absolutely true that hiring as civilians takes longer than we would like it to. Some of that is about the security clearance process and some of it is other things. So can I turn it to the G1 to give some specifics? Yes, ma'am, you can. You don't need a lot of help, though. You've hit a lot of the things that we've got going on. One of the things that we have holding up right here, there's one across the room there, it's called Navigating Civilian Employment. It's kind of the way that you get through the system because it is a system. A Title 5 U.S. Code tells us how we hire. We are getting direct hire authority. We are pushing remote work for some of our spouses because there's a lot of things that we do that can be done and travel with the spouse as they move. I know that we've got some lawyers that help with the G1 and their spouses and they are not here in Washington, D.C. So that's another way that we're looking at to do that. We do have a lot of fellowships that we're offering. I'm glad we gave one away today to a very deserving family. We're also putting up things on all of our websites to do that. The real piece that's hard about this is how do we teach our managers how to hire? It is a very complicated process and there's those that do it well and those that don't. For to cut it down, what you have to do is you have to prepare for your hiring. You have to put it out there.  Because if you look, we have what we call the pinks and blues, which is the way we look at our time to hire. Blue is the time for the civilian human resources agency and pink is for management. Guess which block is bigger? So we have some work to do across all of our management people, the people that are doing the hiring to help with those folks that need those jobs and they need them now out there. We also have spouse preferences that are portable. We just recently got a statutory change that we got help from OSD. Thank you Honorable Cisneros, where we allowed our civilian spouses to get out of PPP. For those of you who don't know what the priority placement program is, if you get offered a job you have to take that job or you go to the back of the line. We've allowed spouses to take a look at all the jobs that they qualify for on the installation and then apply their preference, which makes a big difference in job satisfaction. And those are just a few of the things that we're working on ma'am. Mr. Wallace, I do want to say that, you know, General Taylor, I am listening. Number one was we have to do better with USA jobs. Okay, I still have the task. I'm not letting it go. We can talk about all this, but if I have to have a PhD to get hired in a job, I'm going to go somewhere else. And that's what our spouses, we are losing talent because the system is so hard to navigate. He held up a pamphlet.  You go, hey, I'd like to go for that job. That's great. Good. Let's hire you. I literally have to have a PhD to get in USA jobs. So I appreciate all that, but I don't want you to walk away and think that I've let go of that topic. I am not letting go because we lose talent all the time, all the time.  We just need lifeguards. So my daughter, get over there, go to lifeguard school. She goes to lifeguard school and she didn't get off her job.  You know, it's okay. Okay. I'm not saying anything. And then somebody goes, the MWR goes, Hey, you know, we really need lifeguards. I'm like, Okay, well, you didn't offer a job. You have to have the class of job. I don't know. There's something wrong with the system. So I've, I've watched this over and over and I know there's spouses out there that say, please help us out with USA jobs. I know that is not an army system. I know it's all the government, but we, we can do better. And that's what we need. An easy system that can navigate the program. So we don't lose talent when you move from post to post. Yeah, I went out to read. I was a G1 recovering G1 and I was in charge as Roy said this. I could never figure it out. And I've had too many people come to me and us jobs, you know, if we were in a business of trying to, you know, match people or do talent management, it doesn't work. And I don't know what to say. I don't know how to fix it.  But, you know, if anyone's out there that knows how to help fix that for certainly our spouse, I've seen so many qualified, you know, family members that are absolutely the right, you know, person to take the job and we're not trying to use influence or anything. And then as Sergeant Major says, the job goes unfilled and people come back and you're in the command, you're going, you know, we can't get enough of these type people. And you're going, well, these people over here want to do it. You want to hire them, but they don't come out, you know, they apply in USA. They go into some machine somewhere and they don't come out the other end. And if they don't go in the machine, even though you want to hire them and they want to be hired, it doesn't work. So if anyone out there can help me and, you know, try to figure out how that machine works. I don't know what goes on in that machine, but what I do know and I'm an outcome based person is we're not able to take talent we have and match it with the people that want to hire. Okay. That's where I'm at. So I think miss the MNRA. So I'm working on it. I think everybody agrees that it is a challenge. I am also a victim of USA jobs. I put in an application for something I was eminently qualified for six months later. I got to thank you for your interest in national security. I'm a disabled veteran, so I was very confused by all of this. But that was an experience from about 10 years ago. I met with OPM. I'm Dr. Forra, our DASA for civilian personnel is working very, very closely on all of these problems. So it's not, we're all wringing our hands and saying this is a terrible system. We're, you know, we're subject to what the OPM system is. We're actively work and aggressively working towards making it better. So we're working on it. Okay. Okay. I think we got time for maybe two questions. Let me see if I can. Okay. All right. So this is, okay, this next question. Would you consider reviewing the current policy that prohibits single parents from joining the army in today's society and recruiting efforts? We lose a lot of candidates because we require them to forfeit custody until they arrive to their first duty station. Obviously, you know, we are in a point right now with the army and our recruiting landscape. I think we want to, you know, we are revisiting a lot of things, frankly, in terms of the way we've always done things. And we can certainly look at this, you know, I do think at the same time, you know, obviously, serving in the army is challenging. You know, we ask all of our army folks and families to do hard things. And, you know, we require everyone to have a family plan. And I think for single parents, you know, that is something we want to make sure that anyone who's a single parent is going to be able to deploy, going to be able to go out on training and obviously have assurance that their dependents are taking care of. So there are some challenges with that, that I think, you know, those are the kinds of issues why we've had the policy we've had. We can look at that. And I think we're looking at a lot of things with fresh eyes, but I wouldn't want to make guarantees at this point. Yeah, Madam Secretary, I'm pretty sure the G-1 RE has this question for action. In the MNRA too. Yeah, in the MNRA, it came up, I can't remember whether it was in the Army Recruiting and Retention Task Force that was addressed. And today, what about this, a lot of single parents don't want to give up, how's the other kids go. But I think it's already in action in the headquarters that we're looking at. Obviously, we don't have the answer yet. And clearly we've not brought head to the sector of the Army. Yeah, I see nodding heads. Yes, ma'am. It is. It's part of the RTF work that we're doing right now. Okay. All right. This is the last question. So we're almost out of time. All right. Can we make it mandatory that all soldiers active, guard, reserve, see a mental health provider annually? You know, I think we've talked a little bit in this form already about mental health issues. And the SMA made some good points about access to behavioral health resource is not the answer to everything. It is not a silver bullet. It's an important resource that's out there, but it's not the only one that's out there. And so to scale up and have the entire about a million person or even the active Army 465,000 people strong to do 100% wellness checks would be very, very resource intensive. And I think we have to look very carefully at what result we're going to get for that investment. I think we're probably better off looking at the totality of resources that we have available to make sure that our soldiers and families are supported and healthy physically and mentally. And again, that is about the golden triangle. That's about taking care of your squad. It's also about, you know, health and holistic fitness. And it's about behavioral health. Yes. I guess I think the question was behavioral health. And because I have asked and I did that already at the AFAB with the offices, certain general to look at how do you can how can you do a wellness check? Not necessarily everybody sees a behavioral health provider. But how can you see do a wellness check and that could that be part of your your annual checkup? And I'm very deliberate with the wellness check versus behavioral health. If you need to seek behavioral help, that's the dilemma. We don't have enough. We've already acknowledged that. And then maybe I don't need to see baby. Do we want to give that time slot for somebody that actually really need I need this appointment right now? And that's the dilemma. But there are other ways and we've seen success by the big red one and we've seen by the mission 100 in Alaska. But those wellness checks are not always done by the behavioral health specialists. It could be the military family counselor. It could be your chaplain. So what what does that look like? And I think we're still working through that, Madam Secretary. But not just everybody sees behavioral health, because if you don't need it, then you're going to take a time slot for somebody that really really needs to see behavioral health. Yeah, I think just, you know, having some that works in that business in the army. And what they will tell you tell us is behavioral health officers right now have very full schedules.  And one of the biggest complaints that we get is from behavioral health is you can't get to see a provider. And if we would put more in it. But but you know, what we're seeing is the big red one had everyone go see a military family life counselor or some type of counselor almost if you look at it as a triage type thing. So the idea for a lot of people don't know the difference to be like, you know, going to see a medic just, you know, doing the initial checkout. And then if someone has a problem, they're going to go see a specialist and the specialists work your way through it. So I think there's value in doing that. You know, the idea that you know, you get some type of check and it could be with it could be with the chaplains and we get great chaplains and we have great military family life counselors. But you know, the specialist, we want to get the people that really have behavioral health needs to the people that do that stuff for a living. And again, there's only so many of them and they only have so much time. All right. So that ends our questions. I would also tell you that we do have a lot of folks who probably had some unanswered questions. So I will also offer the opportunity for you to engage our Army staff. We have folks from the G1, the G4, our chaplains office, our certain general, G9, MNRA. We have all of our major staff elements here. So we will take your questions after it's all over with and we want to make sure that you walk out filling that your questions were answered. At least we're going to come back to you and try to resolve some of this. So I'd also, I'm going to take the opportunity now to provide our Army senior leaders an opportunity to make some closing comments. So we're going to start with the Star Majority Army. I just want to say thank you to all the families. You know, I've been around the world for 35 years, drugged my family all over the place and I would not be sitting here if it wasn't for my wife and my kids without a doubt. And the reason he introduced me as Alexander's husband is a lot of people say, well, how do we address you? And I said, well, I really don't care or just don't screw up this Alexander's husband or Sophia and Isabella's dad because those are my favorite two titles. After that, I'll answer to pretty much any old thing. So I couldn't be more proud of what you all have done in the last three or four years to support your soldiers. And I couldn't be more proud to be your Sergeant Major of the Army. Well, thanks, Sergeant Major. And again, I've been around a lot of Sergeant majors and there's no one that cares more about our soldiers and families and then our Sergeant Major and really truly appreciate that. And one thing I would add is for the families is we are committed to giving our families and soldiers the quality of life that they've earned and we don't always get it right. And so hold us accountable on post. We've got a lot of leaders here. Make sure that that's happening. When I look at privatized housing and they're not delivering what they need to deliver, last time I checked, we're still paying them the money they're supposed to get for that. So they should deliver. When I look at moves going bad, I go, did I miss something or were you not paid for that move we're about to able to do? And all these other type things that are going on, we're paying people for healthcare out in the market. So if they're not doing these type things, we need to hold them accountable. Because we are actually purchasing all these services and we have leaders here and I would just ask that you, you know, if something's going wrong, bring it up. Give the chain of command a chance to solve it. And if they can't solve it, come to us because everyone else does. Okay. Thank you. I don't think I could say it better than both the SMA and the chief, but I would like to thank you all. You know, thank you for everything you're doing. Thank you for being a part of the Army. Thank you for supporting your soldiers. It's just really something special to see. I also would be remiss first for SMA. I'm still in denial that eventually this particular SMA is going to move on, but it occurs to me all of a sudden that while I'm sure this is not the last general family forum for the SMA or for General McConville, this is the last family forum for here at AUSA, for Sergeant Major of the Army, Grinston, and for our great chief, they are both, you know, two tremendous Army leaders. And this was


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