[Senate Hearing 115-718]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 115-718
BUILDING A F.A.S.T. FORCE:
A FLEXIBLE PERSONNEL SYSTEM FOR A MODERN MILITARY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON PERSONNEL
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 3, 2017
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via http://www.govinfo.gov/
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
38-452 PDF WASHINGTON : 2019
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona, Chairman
JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma, Chairman JACK REED, Rhode Island
ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi BILL NELSON, Florida
DEB FISCHER, Nebraska CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri
TOM COTTON, Arkansas JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York
JONI ERNST, Iowa RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina JOE DONNELLY, Indiana
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia TIM KAINE, Virginia
TED CRUZ, Texas ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine
LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
BEN SASSE, Nebraska ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts
LUTHER STRANGE, Alabama GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
Christian D. Brose, Staff Director
Elizabeth L. King, Minority Staff Director
_________________________________________________________________
Subcommittee on Personnel
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
Chairman
JONI ERNST, Iowa KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York
LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Graham CLAIRE McCaskill, Missouri
BEN SASSE, Nebraska ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
_________________________________________________________________
May 3, 2017
Page
Building A F.A.S.T. Force: A Flexible Personnel System for a 1
Modern Military.
Talent, Senator James M., Co-Chair, Bipartisan Policy Center Task 3
Force on Defense Personnel.
Roth-Douquet, Kathy, Co-Chair, Bipartisan Policy Center Task 5
Force on Defense Personnel.
Punaro, Major General Arnold L., USMCR (Ret.), Bipartisan Policy 12
Center Task Force on Defense Personnel.
(iii)
BUILDING A F.A.S.T. FORCE:.
A FLEXIBLE PERSONNEL SYSTEM FOR A MODERN MILITARY
----------
WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 2017
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Personnel,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m. in
Room SR-232-A, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Thom
Tillis (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Committee Members present: Senators Tillis, Ernst,
Gillibrand, McCaskill, and Warren.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR THOM TILLIS
Senator Tillis. I want to call the hearing to order.
The Senate Armed Services Committee will, first off,
welcome everyone. Thank you for coming.
The Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel meets
this afternoon to discuss the findings and recommendations of
the Bipartisan Policy Center's Task Force on Defense Personnel
Reform.
Today we welcome a distinguished panel of witnesses
representing the task force: Senator Jim Talent, former senator
from the great state of Missouri; Ms. Kathy Roth-Douquet, CEO
[chief executive officer] of Blue Star Families, welcome back;
and Major General Punaro, former Staff Director for the Senate
Armed Services Committee. Welcome back.
The Bipartisan Policy Center established a task force led
by co-chairs Secretary Leon Panetta, Senator Jim Talent,
General Jim Jones, and Ms. Kathy Roth-Douquet, to assess the
Nation's imperative to improve Defense personnel systems to
better meet unpredictable future national security needs.
Prior to establishing a final report, the 25-member task
force published a series of white papers examining the
strengths and weaknesses of Defense personnel policies and
practices, and in March 2017 the task force published its final
report, ``Building a F.A.S.T. Force: A Flexible Personnel
System for a Modern Military.'' This comprehensive report
included 39 distinct recommendations that will provide a fully
engaged, adaptable, sustainable, and technically proficient
force of the future.
The Senate Armed Services Committee and the subcommittee in
particular have been focusing on reforms aimed at developing
more flexibility and permeability in the military and civilian
personnel systems. This discussion today will continue these
efforts.
I want to recognize the extremely valuable work of the task
force and also thank the witnesses for being here today. I look
forward to hearing your testimony and the questions that
follow.
Senator Gillibrand, welcome to the committee as Ranking
Member. Would you like to make any comments?
STATEMENT OF SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you, Senator Tillis. I join you
in welcoming our witnesses today. As we learn more about the
report and recommendations of the task force, I agree that it's
important for us to carefully examine the Department of
Defense's (DOD) military and civilian personnel systems to
ensure that they meet the needs of our 21st Century workforce.
For more than 40 years, we've depended on volunteers to
defend our Nation. Those who are serving our military today and
their families are serving because they choose to do so, not
because they're required to serve. In that time, our country,
our economy, and the nature of the threats we face have all
changed significantly.
The military personnel system that supports this All-
Volunteer Force has served us well, but it has not kept pace
with the changes in society. We don't need to completely
replace the current system, but we should and will carefully
examine it to see where it can be updated and improved. It's
essential that our All-Volunteer Force is recruited and managed
and retained with 21st Century tools that address the needs of
this generation of servicemembers and families.
The task force produced a series of analytical papers and
examined the strengths and shortcomings of current personnel
policies and practices and made 39 specific recommendations to
improve the personnel system. While all 39 recommendations
warrant careful study and analysis, there are a few areas I'd
like to address today at this hearing.
I'm particularly interested in how we can best serve our
military families. We all know that families play a critical
part in the servicemember's readiness and his or her decision
to stay in or leave the military. I would like to hear from you
today about making it easier for military spouses to find and
sustain a career, especially when relocating, improving access
to and quality of Defense Department-provided childcare
services, and creating on-base childcare coordinators to
advocate for military families in the local community, and to
build private-public childcare partnerships.
Another area I'm very interested in hearing about is how to
build and support a flexible cyber workforce with the highly
skilled specialized skills that are necessary to handle the
growing cyber mission.
I'd like to hear about the continuum of service that would
make it easier to repeatedly transition between Active, Guard,
and Reserve components; expansion of lateral entry authority to
allow mid-career civilians to enter the military at higher
ranks; and the expansion of the Reserve Officer Training Corps
program to all levels of higher education to include post-
graduate and community college students.
Finally, I'm curious about your recommendations that
encourage creation of technical non-command career track for
certain officers.
In last year's NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act], I
worked on developing military justice expertise among our
judges and advocates. One area that I asked the Department to
look at was additional O-4 to O-6 positions that would allow
officers to specialize, be it in military justice or in cyber.
Again, thank you to the witnesses, and I look forward to
hearing about your recommendations.
Senator Tillis. Thank you.
Senator Ernst, would you like to say anything before we
move to the testimony?
Senator Ernst. I'd just like to thank our witnesses for
being here today.
Senator Tillis. Well, thank you.
I look forward to all your opening comments.
We'll begin with Senator Talent.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR JAMES M. TALENT, CO-CHAIR, BIPARTISAN
POLICY CENTER TASK FORCE ON DEFENSE PERSONNEL
Senator Talent. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the
Ranking Member. Her comments stated the theme of our report.
I'll go ahead and give the opening statement anyway and
struggle along without my reading glasses.
We're very pleased with how the subcommittee and the
committee have focused on personnel issues, and we're grateful
for the opportunity to talk about our task force report in this
hearing.
The foundation of America's military strength is the
quality and morale of the men and women who have chosen to
service. We on the task force are grateful, as we know you are,
to all those who volunteer for the Armed Forces. It's their
dedication and their sacrifice that, in a world of growing
risk, keeps our country and our people safe.
Yet, we can't take the strength and the quality of our
servicemen and women for granted. We have to recruit and keep
the best people with the most cutting-edge capabilities going
forward, and as you all know, that's already a problem. The Air
Force is 1,500 short in terms of pilots. The Navy is struggling
to maintain nuclear-qualified officers. The Marines are short
in their sniper scout capabilities. All the branches are
struggling to build and maintain new cyber units, which Senator
Gillibrand mentioned.
The military must also, going forward, engage the entirety
of American society, and that's a problem too. The military is
becoming a kind of family business. About 80 percent of today's
recruits come from a military family. About half of them come
from the South. The Northeast is severely underrepresented in
that, and as far as we can tell and as far as we were able to
determine in our deliberations, it's not because young people
are opposed to service in the military; it's because they've
never really engaged with the idea. We think that's largely
because the Department is not doing as good a job as it should
of engaging with them on a broad spectrum.
So those problems are the tip of an iceberg that we're
concerned are going to keep getting bigger and bigger unless we
act. The underlying problem, as the Ranking Member said, is
that the current military personnel system was developed in
World War II. It was refined for the Cold War, and that was a
time when war, which while it certainly was not simple, was not
as complex as it is today, and that was a time when American
society was very different than it is today.
In 1960, only 25 percent of married couples in the country
had two income earners. Today it's 60 percent. So American
families have come to rely on two incomes, and it's difficult
to maintain two incomes in a military family if you're the
second wage earner and your spouse is moving every 1 or 2 years
and you don't even know where they're going to be going.
The post-World War II period saw hardly any women in
uniform. Today, 15 percent, thankfully, of our servicemembers
are female, and they're serving in virtually every military
specialty. Sixty years ago, few servicemembers were married.
Today, over half of servicemembers are married, and 41 percent
of them have children, and 20 percent of the females on Active
Duty are married to somebody else on Active Duty, which
presents its own unique challenges when it comes to balancing
family with military demands.
So going forward, if the military is going to recruit and
retain a volunteer force with the necessary skills, it needs to
do two things. It needs to recruit, assign, and promote in a
way that develops and retains value across a wide range of
skills, including the highly technical skills; and it needs to
better accommodate the evolution of American society and the
American family, and it needs to do those things without
sacrificing the aspects of the system that are working well.
So we want to examine those challenges. We formed a task
force of 25 members that come from all different backgrounds,
from the military or former military, like the General, former
public officials like me, really powerful advocates for
families like Kathy, and people from medicine and the law. We
began. We examined the threats, the likely needs of the
Department going forward. We had a number of focus groups and
listened to people all throughout the services. All of them
supported, by the way, strong personnel reform.
Our report offers 39 recommendations. I'm not going to try
to go through them all now. They cover the waterfront. I would
say that if you think about them as coming in four categories,
it might be useful for you: recruiting, assignments, promotion,
and career progression. That covers a lot of the
recommendations. The military lifestyle or accommodating
military personnel policies to the military family; and then
reform of compensation and services. We think we can have a
compensation package that is more affordable, but also more
satisfying to military servicemembers.
I'll just close. In our written statement we recommend five
changes you could do if you were of a mind to in this year's
NDAA.
Expand lateral entry--Senator Gillibrand touched upon
that--to allow more mid-career civilians to enter the military
at higher ranks and on flexible terms. Of course, the military
already does this. But to reach out into the civilian
workforce, pull people out mid-career to help with particular
specialties, whether it's military justice or cyber or finance
or engineering.
Improve our recruiting efforts, and we've really tried to
highlight this by coming up with a common e-application form,
because young people, of course, live online. If we had one
form, it would enable the Services to work together rather than
competing as much and make the whole process more accessible to
young people.
We recommend enhancing and expanding the Selective Service
System to include all young American adults, and also at the
time that these young people register, we recommend having them
take the military aptitude test. This is so that we can engage.
It's an access point that already exists where the military can
engage, the Armed Forces can engage with people and they can
engage with the Armed Forces, and we can develop an inventory
of skills so that we can reach out on an individualized basis
and recruit.
Finally, improve access to and the quality of the
Department's childcare services. Kathy, I'm sure, will want to
talk more about this. This is a very important thing for
military families. The childcare centers are good where we have
them, but we don't have enough, and there are long waiting
lists, so we need more of them. But we also need some
flexibility in order to help military families with other kinds
of arrangements that may be available in the places where
they're posted.
I don't know if I went over the 5 minutes. Secretary
Panetta and General Jones send their regards to the committee
and their regrets that they couldn't be here. We are happy to
be here, and we're looking forward to your questions. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Tillis. Thank you, Senator.
Ms. Roth-Douquet?
STATEMENT OF KATHY ROTH-DOUQUET, CO-CHAIR, BIPARTISAN POLICY
CENTER TASK FORCE ON DEFENSE PERSONNEL
Ms. Roth-Douquet. Thank you. I appreciate the comments of
Senator Talent and agree with all of them. The only thing I
would like to mention is that the currently serving force, as
you know, Active Duty, Guard, and Reserve and their families,
they love their mission and they love their service. There are
things that make continuing to serve extremely difficult for
them, and they don't help national security.
In many ways, our current personnel system is a little bit
like trying to do your job in a straightjacket. It doesn't help
anybody. When our members hear that this committee, that you
senators are willing to look at and take on this issue, they
are tremendously excited and motivated because they know this
is a very arcane topic. It's hard for Americans to understand
that there are things about the way our day-to-day lives are
managed that make it difficult to do our job and that interfere
with our missions and have nothing to do with what's going on
in Syria and North Korea.
The missions don't deter us. The inability to have a say in
stewarding our own careers as a family do, and the difficulty
of having the whole person engaged in their career in the
military, the whole person being someone who has a family.
So we are very grateful to have you hear us talk about
this, and that in itself is a huge benefit, and we look forward
to the rest of this conversation.
[The joint prepared statement of Senator Talent, Ms. Kathy
Roth-Douquet, and Major General Arnold Punaro follows:]
Joint Prepared Statement by Senator James Talent, Ms. Kathy Roth-
Douquet, and Major General Arnold Punaro
Good afternoon Chairman Tillis, Ranking Member Gillibrand and
members of the committee. Thank you for inviting us here to discuss the
Bipartisan Policy Center's Task Force on Defense Personnel.
The foundation of U.S. military power is the quality and morale of
the men and women who have chosen to serve the Nation--in and out of
uniform. This fact is especially true after more than 15 years of
conflict and heightened risks for the Nation. Meeting these challenges
has led to frequent deployments in what remains a challenging global
security environment.
The Nation and its leaders must not take our strength for granted.
We fear our military lacks the capability to attract, use, and keep the
unconventional, technical, and cutting-edge talents and skills that it
needs to meet future threats and new realities. We must meet rapidly
evolving and unpredictable national security challenges ahead. More
than ever, the U.S. military must fully engage the entirety of American
society, not only to expand the military's access to talent, but to
also reconnect the Nation to its military. The highly capable men and
women needed for an all-professional force will always have out-of-
uniform career opportunities; the United States must ensure that
national service remains a compelling calling and creates a sustainable
lifestyle for individuals and families.
While the military personnel system has many strengths, we have all
seen cases where it serves as a barrier to readiness and performance.
Further, as American society has changed substantially since the post-
World War II era--in which the modern military personnel system was
shaped--the adverse impacts on military families are increasing. While
our research and experience suggests that American servicemembers and
military families are more than willing to make sacrifices to achieve
the mission, many of the negative impacts these members and families
endure are unnecessary for national security needs. The problems the
military faces today with recruiting and retention are a consequence of
legacy policies that need updating in ways that many other
organizations have successfully implemented.
To examine these challenges, the Bipartisan Policy Center launched
the Task Force on Defense Personnel. Over the last year, our 25-member
task force carefully reviewed the issues confronting our military, our
troops, and their families. We started our effort by looking at the
threats facing our Nation and the capabilities our military needs to
counter them. Only after we had answered those two questions did we
begin crafting our policy recommendations. The reforms we're advocating
will help ensure our military is prepared for the complex global
security environment ahead.
Members of the task force possess considerable expertise on all
matters related to defense personnel management. They have a variety of
backgrounds and relevant experience, including former elected and
appointed officials with congressional, White House, Pentagon, and
other cabinet-level agency experience; former servicemembers (enlisted,
officers, Active, and Reserve); and private-sector experience in
business, medicine, higher education, nonprofits, and as advocates for
servicemembers and military families.
As part of our research, we organized several focus groups with the
military community. This afforded us a deeper understanding of the
impact of personnel policy on servicemembers and their families. We
heard from officers, enlisted, and warrant officers from every branch
of service, both Active and Reserve. We also spoke with their families.
Nearly everyone told us they strongly supported major reform of the
personnel system. They expressed growing concern that today's military
lifestyle harms recruiting and retention for the next generation of
servicemembers.
Our deliberations were not easy. Task force members came with
diverse viewpoints and strongly held beliefs, some of which were
challenging to reconcile. Nonetheless, the entire task force believes
that, as a package, our recommendations would significantly improve
current defense personnel policy and build a stronger military.
the problem
National security needs must drive defense personnel policy to
build a military well-positioned to advance the Nation's interests.
Since the threats facing the Nation continuously evolve, military
recruitment, retention, and management policies must continuously
evolve as well. If personnel policy fails to meet national security
needs, it becomes wasteful and inefficient, degrading the military's
capability. Our military faces this precise challenge today.
Policymakers have resisted these reforms, in part, because of a
false perception that the military has access to all the people it
needs. Critics will point to the success of the all-volunteer force as
evidence for leaving the current personnel system in place. However
well-intentioned these critics may be, they rely on a logic not applied
to other military capabilities. We do not wait for U.S. fighter jets to
become obsolete before beginning to design their replacements, for
example. While recognizing the value and strengths of the legacy
personnel system, it can and must be improved without breaking a
military that is still exceedingly capable.
Three key dynamics form the rationale for defense personnel system
reform:
new and unique demands on the military due to the
changing global security environment;
unaffordable growth and expanded scope of personnel
costs; and
dramatic changes in American society and its connection
to the military.
As an indication of these three overarching challenges, we are
already seeing worrying recruiting and retention trends in specific
occupational specialties across the force. The Air Force faces a severe
and growing pilot shortage in the Active and Reserve components, and
increased cash retention bonuses are doing little to improve the
situation.
Similarly, as the Army looks to increase its overall end-strength,
they are offering large cash bonuses to convince soldiers to extend
their enlistments. In some cases, the Army is offering bonuses to
soldiers in exchange for just 12 months of additional service. In the
recent past, we've also seen recruiting standards drop when the Army
tried to grow too quickly.
The Navy strains to retain officers who operate its ships' nuclear
reactors and has recently increased the Nuclear Officer Incentive
Continuation Pay by 15 percent. While money can help, it is not the
only or even most important factor in servicemember retention
decisions.
The Marine Corps has announced that it has a ``critical'' sniper
shortage due to high washout rates from sniper training. One of the
main issues identified as a factor in the shortage is the high-turnover
rate, driven by a lack of career progression. These remain
fundamentally personnel policy challenges.
Though these acute challenges represent a small percentage of the
total force, these specialties are indicative of the skills the
military will rely upon more as it looks to the future. Specialized,
experienced, and highly trained personnel will become more, not less,
important in the unpredictable and complex security environment our
country faces.
The New Global Security Environment
National security concerns and U.S. military success in the future
global security environment remain primary factors for policymakers to
consider when assessing the need for personnel reform. Without
question, when today's military and civil service personnel systems
were created, the United States faced very different threats than the
Nation faces today. In the wake of World War II, the Soviet Union
loomed as perhaps the only danger confronting the Nation. Those were
simpler times.
While core U.S. national security interests have largely remained
constant in the quarter-century since the end of the Cold War, the
threats arrayed against those interests are spreading geographically,
transforming strategically, and evolving technologically. Once viewed
as archaic, the threat of great-power conflict-- with the resurgence of
Russia and rise of China--is suddenly relevant again. Add to that the
more diffuse threats from malicious non-state actors, who have mastered
the techniques of unconventional warfare while metastasizing across
much of the world. Rogue nations have made tremendous technological
advances, allowing them to erode much of the traditional military
superiority long enjoyed by U.S. forces.
Worse, these trends have coalesced to create a gray zone of
conflict, in which adversaries seek to erode the existing international
order--not through military victory but through a prolonged wearing
down of both established norms and the willingness of responsible
actors to uphold them. In such conflicts of attrition and ambiguity,
nation states deploy proxies, non-state actors field sophisticated
weaponry, and new domains like cyberspace allow weaker powers to
exploit unforeseen vulnerabilities.
In this new normal, a military designed to wage only conventional
war against great powers will not be enough. The United States must
become capable of winning against more-opaque adversaries as well.
Success against future enemies on new battlefields will require not
only physical strength and vigor but, increasingly, mental agility,
technical experience, and rapid innovation. Our current military
personnel system is not designed to build the sort of force we will
need to confront this wide-variety of threats.
Rising Personnel Costs
The nature of the all-volunteer, professional military requires
that servicemembers be better compensated than they were during the
days of the draft. This is especially true for the highly skilled,
well-educated personnel who fill the ranks of the U.S. military.
However, over the past several decades, servicemember personnel costs
have grown rapidly. In just the last 15 years, the average cost of an
Active Duty servicemember has increased, in real terms, by over 50
percent. This trend is unsustainable. Unless controlled, personnel
costs will confront the Nation with a choice between an insignificant
force and a significant debt.
Increases in cash compensation and the cost of health care benefits
have been prime drivers of rising personnel costs. But the military's
reliance on compensation as its sole tool to incentivize recruiting and
retention results from a personnel system too inflexible to provide
servicemembers with incentives that might be just as, or more, valuable
to them, but less costly to taxpayers.
The Budget Control Act of 2011 dramatically increased this problem.
Arbitrary budget constraints combined with a rigid personnel system,
imposed even as the tempo of military operations abroad remains high,
forced the military into a vicious cycle. With limited funds, the
military reduced its end strength; with fewer troops available, each
servicemember carries a heavier burden; as the difficulties of service
grow, more incentives are needed to retain servicemembers; as options
for meaningful incentives are sparse, bonus pay becomes more common; as
more money is spent on compensation, less is available to grow the
force.
Growing Civilian-Military Divide
We fully recognize that the unique culture of the U.S. military is
essential to its success, and the current personnel system contains
many elements that are important to sustaining that culture. The
Defense Department is not a private company or a nonprofit
organization; it can and must demand that its servicemembers make
sacrifices that are foreign to the civilian world. In fact, the ethic
of sacrifice is part of what attracts so many outstanding people to
service in uniform.
However, the task force also believes that to recruit and retain
the talent needed to address emerging threats, Services must attract
Americans from all sectors in our society. This demands fundamental
changes to some aspects of military life. Because a more-inclusive and
dynamic labor force has emerged in the United States over the last
seven decades, defense personnel policies should reflect fundamental
socioeconomic changes. For example, many of today's military spouses--
who are both male and female--want, expect, and need to be able to
pursue a career. The biggest obstacle to military spouse employment is
the requirement to move every 2 to 3 years. Perhaps the military
requirement of frequent relocations is of lower value to the Defense
Department than retaining valuable servicemembers by allowing them to
remain in one place. Additional factors like the rising rates of
obesity, changes in education, and the demographics of society itself
further illustrate the need to rethink how the military approaches
personnel policy.
The biggest mistake--indeed, the worst outcome for the Defense
Department--would be to do nothing. Building on the work done in the
last several NDAAs, this committee should take meaningful action to
make fundamental personnel reforms in the Fiscal Year 2018 NDAA.
Through bipartisan cooperation and leadership from public officials,
the United States can ensure that its longstanding military advantage
can endure well into the 21st Century.
the solution
While military and defense-civilian personnel systems serve many
purposes, and must meet varied goals, a handful of key outcomes are
especially relevant in the increasingly complex national security
environment. To ensure the Nation's continued national security and
military advantage, defense leaders in the Congress and the Pentagon
should design personnel policy with the goals of building a force that
is:
Fully engaged by American society. The United States is
fortunate to have an abundance of talent and experience across its
diverse population. The personnel system must serve as a bridge--not a
barrier--to accessing this talent, especially hard-to-find or in-demand
capabilities. The military must be able to consistently acquire top
talent, whether experienced or entry-level, and to retain that talent
amid a competitive employment marketplace, even if those individuals
are not well-suited, or do not wish, to progress toward command.
Adaptable to new threats as they arise. Because future
national security needs are uncertain, personnel policy must be able to
accommodate changing requirements. Rather than waiting years to train
new troops, commanders should be given the tools to quickly find and
use the capabilities they need to achieve their missions: more of one
skillset, less of another, or entirely different capabilities, such as
mastery of new technologies or familiarity with certain languages or
cultures. Recently, the perennial answer to unexpected military needs
has been to use special operations forces, which is an unsustainable
long-term solution. The ``new normal'' national security environment
requires the rest of the force to also develop the capability to
succeed in unconventional missions.
Sustainable, both financially and culturally, for long-
term success. Regardless of the Defense topline, the military must meet
its personnel needs efficiently. More importantly, at the same time,
DOD must ensure that servicemembers and defense civilians are
competitively compensated. Additionally, personnel policy must also
support the personal lives of servicemembers. If the conditions of
military life force servicemembers to choose between their family's
well-being and a military career, the family will win and the military
will lose access to a critical segment of the talent pool. Lastly,
Congress must remove or significantly increase the Budget Control Act
caps that have inhibited intelligent strategic decisions on Defense
program growth and priorities.
Technically proficient. The skillsets required by the
military will only become more technical as the national security
environment becomes more complex. Whether developing new capabilities
to confront the increasingly difficult challenge of defending the
frontiers of space and cyberspace, applying new technologies and
greater individual decision-making to existing military roles, building
language skills and cultural knowledge, or maintaining expert-level
trauma-care capabilities, these challenges are fundamentally personnel
issues. A personnel system that cannot consistently build and retain
these types of capabilities has failed, with profound implications for
military readiness and national security.
To achieve these desired outcomes, our report presents a
comprehensive package of 39 bipartisan proposals to improve the
effectiveness of military personnel policy. Taken together, the
recommendations contained in this report aim to prepare the military to
confront the threats of the future, while also keeping promises made to
today's servicemembers and meeting the needs of military families. A
Fully engaged, Adaptable, Sustainable, and Technically proficient
(F.A.S.T.) military will ensure the future force is as strong as the
one the United States has fielded for the last 70 years.
Immediate Actions:
Our Task Force recommends five proposals that can and should be
implemented in this year's National Defense Authorization Act.
Expand lateral-entry authority to allow midcareer
civilians to enter the military at higher ranks.
Allow individuals with non-combat-specific skills (e.g.,
acquisition, cyber, finance, engineering, medical, law) to enter the
military at higher ranks in the officer, warrant officer, and enlisted
corps. Lateral-entry authority could reincorporate individuals with
prior service who desire to reenter the military. Those who have
acquired valuable skills after their military service could be allowed
to rejoin at a higher rank. In previous wars, this avenue for lateral
entry was frequently used. For example, during World War II, William S.
Paley, the co-founder of CBS, was brought into the Army as a colonel to
work in psychological operations using the broadcast medium. The Fiscal
Year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act lateral-entry pilot
program for cyber personnel should be expanded to cover more
occupational specialties.
Improve and synergize online military recruiting efforts
by creating a cross-service common application and expanding web-based
recruiting tools.
Optimize recruiting by closing and consolidating some ``brick-
and-mortar'' recruiting offices to free up resources for a more robust
online recruiting system. E-recruiting is a more effective way to
appeal to a demographic that is more comfortable with digital processes
and less likely to walk into a physical recruiting center. Current
digital platforms are insufficient and disjointed. Active and Reserve
components and individual Services use different systems for their
officer and enlisted cohorts. The U.S. military fights as a joint,
total force. Therefore, its recruiting efforts should be organized as a
joint operation that integrates all components (i.e., Active, Guard,
and Reserve). Too often, the different services and components are
competing against each other for talent. This competition is
inefficient and works against the military's total-force mantra.
Enhance and expand the Selective Service System to
include all young American adults.
Create a gender-blind Selective Service System (SSS) that gathers
more data about the unique skills and experiences of registrants.
Important information gathered through this system could include
language or cultural skills, educational qualifications, or other
technical qualifications. This database should allow the military to
more easily identify and focus specialized recruiting efforts on
individuals with demonstrated high-demand skills and aptitude.
Additionally, all Selective Service registrants should complete
the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery to expose millions of
younger Americans to the possibility of military service.
Create an online database to automate and increase
servicemember influence over future military assignments.
Personnel assignment systems, while prioritizing needs of the
service and mission, should ensure that people are assigned to
positions that best reflect their individual skills and talents.
Assignments closely aligned to a servicemember's unique abilities are
more likely to enhance individual and unit performance, in addition to
serving as a strong retention tool.
Therefore, we propose a pilot program within each service that
provides servicemembers more influence over their future assignments
and allows commanders greater input in staffing decisions. Each pilot
would last at least 5 years and would encompass a range of career
fields, including operational and administrative specialties. These
pilot programs should be evaluated periodically for their impact on
unit performance individual performance retention, commander
satisfaction, servicemember satisfaction, and impact on the national
security mission.
Improve access to and quality of Defense Department-
provided childcare services.
The Defense Department should take significant steps to increase
access to childcare Department wide. First, to increase funding for
child development centers (CDCs), the Services should have the
authority to pay for CDC construction and renovation through their
operations and maintenance accounts rather than through their military-
construction budgets. Furthermore, to address the ongoing staffing
issues at CDCs, the Pentagon must take steps to streamline the hiring
and retention process for CDC staff (especially for those transferring
between duty stations) and reevaluate CDC staff compensation. Next, to
increase access for families with complex employment schedules, the
Department should explore options for increasing access to part-time
and hourly childcare.
Long Term Reform:
Aligning personnel policy with the threats facing the Nation and
the changes in American society requires a strategic long-term reform
effort. The Defense Officer Personnel Management Act only passed in
1980 after several years of development and negotiation. A similar
approach is needed today. As part of this long-term personnel reform
effort, we recommend the following proposals:
Replace predetermined, time-dependent promotions with a
fully merit-based military promotion model.
To increase the flexibility of the personnel system, the military
should shift away from a promotion system that is heavily influenced by
predetermined timelines. Rather, the personnel system should embrace
greater consideration of merit when promoting officers and enlisted
servicemembers. A merit-based model should rely more on the performance
and experience of individual personnel and less on predetermined
timelines.
This recommendation might cause some individuals to be promoted
sooner than normal. Some would likely be promoted later than current
timelines. These are both desirable outcomes. The military will benefit
if its most talented personnel, who meet the requirements for
promotion, are promoted ahead of their peers. The military also
benefits from allowing individuals more time to develop, to pursue
education, or to build a greater level of technical expertise.
Replace ``up-or-out'' promotions processes with a
``perform-to-stay'' system.
For officers, remove DOPMA and ROPMA field grade officer strength
tables to allow the Services to extend the careers of valuable
servicemembers who are not competitive for continued promotion.
Additionally, we should allow individual servicemembers to voluntarily
remove themselves from promotion consideration to continue building
technical expertise. At the same time, these servicemembers could
continue to strengthen their professional resumes to become more
competitive for future promotions.
For enlisted servicemembers, although there are few statutory
limitations on their ability to continue serving, the Military Services
have implemented policies that mimic the officer system of up-or-out.
Service secretaries should use their authority to ensure valuable,
high-performing enlisted members are not being forced out of the
military just because they are not competitive or interested in further
promotion.
Replace the military pay table to ensure compensation is
commensurate to increased responsibility and performance.
Congress should direct the department to recommend a new pay
table (to completely replace the existing pay table) that is based on
rank (i.e., ``time-in-grade'') rather than on time (i.e., ``time-in-
service''). The pay table would include a base pay for each rank,
incremental pay raises based on time served at that rank, and an
additional incentive pay for certain occupational specialties to
sufficiently compensate high-demand skills and experience. The final
component of this pay table would be the new retirement system's
midcareer retention bonus for selected personnel. The new pay table
should be designed to keep overall compensation constant. As new
personnel authorities are implemented, it is likely that the overall
manpower profile of the force will change (i.e., lateral entry could
yield more midlevel officers while also requiring fewer junior or
senior ranking officers). This new time-in-grade-based pay table would
facilitate efficiency, performance, and readiness improvements to
promote a more-flexible force.
Expand the use of warrant officer positions and create a
technical, non-command career track for officers and enlisted
personnel.
Direct all services to use warrant-officer ranks to retain
technical expertise. Additionally, this reform should also allow
officers with needed technical skills to remove themselves from the
command pipeline by pursuing alternative promotion pathways or
transferring to warrant-officer ranks. These alternative promotion
pathways would allow officers to continue advancing up to a certain
point based on technical knowledge and expertise, without having to
fill a command billet along the way. For example, health care providers
should have access to a career track that enables skilled clinicians to
continue to receive promotions and raises while delivering patient
care, instead of being forced to pursue command and leadership
assignments. Promotion criteria for these alternative pathways and
expanded warrant-officer positions should be relevant to the job
duties.
Create a continuum of service by making it easier to
repeatedly transition between Active, Guard, and Reserve components.
Combine the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA) and
the Reserve Officer Personnel Management Act (ROPMA) into one unified
officer-management statute. The Services should eliminate the
requirement for different officer commissions and enable greater
permeability between Active and Reserve components.
Other important changes include the following:
Create a culture of permeability that supports a continuum-of-
service paradigm; Provide greater opportunities to transition among the
Active, Guard, and Reserve components; make Reserve component service
an option throughout a military career; and, finally, encourage those
servicemembers leaving Active Duty to consider Reserve component
service by extending the reserve position vacancy window beyond the
date of separation from Active Duty.
the f.a.s.t. force in action
Our recommendations, if implemented, would help the military solve
some of its most pressing personnel challenges. As it relates to the
fighter pilot crisis, instead of relying on an ineffective and
expensive retention bonus to stem the loss of experienced aviators, we
propose giving them more of what they want, which is additional time in
the cockpit. Individuals with highly desirable cyber skills would be
allowed to enter the military with advanced rank commensurate with the
value of their experience. By offering flexible career models, the
military can ensure that it does not force people to choose between
uniformed service and private sector experience.
New merit-based promotion policies would allow the highest
performing servicemembers to move up the ranks more quickly, while also
allowing other servicemembers to develop greater depth of experience in
technical specialties like space, cyber, and trauma care.
Lastly, our recommendations would finally allow the military to
bend the cost curve for military personnel without breaking our promise
to those who volunteer to serve. By offering meaningful incentives and
reforming the traditional 20-year military career, the Defense
Department can ensure that it continues to attract highly capable
personnel, while at the same time offering competitive compensation and
benefits to the men and women who protect our nation.
conclusion
A key strength of the U.S. Armed Forces is its unique culture,
characterized by selfless service, integrity, and sacrifice. None of
our recommendations are meant to supplant the values that make the
military the most well-respected public institution in the eyes of the
American people. We recognize that good policy is necessary, but not
sufficient by itself, to achieve a high-performing personnel system.
High-quality leaders are required to provide crucial mentorship and
guidance to the troops under their supervision.
Our recommendations would augment the strengths and minimize the
weakness of the current personnel system in service of the Nation's
security needs. Congress should approach Defense Department personnel
reform with the same mindset. By focusing personnel reforms on
achieving desired national security outcomes, we can both honor the
promises made to today's military and improve the performance of the
force for the future.
Senator Tillis. Thank you.
General Punaro?
STATEMENT OF MAJOR GENERAL ARNOLD L. PUNARO, USMCR (RET.),
BIPARTISAN POLICY CENTER TASK FORCE ON DEFENSE PERSONNEL
General Punaro. Mr. Chairman, Members of the subcommittee,
I have a supplementary lengthy statement that I would ask just
be submitted for the record.
Senator Tillis. Without objection.
General Punaro. Two quick points. I got my start as a young
staffer here in the Armed Services Committee in the early 1970s
working for this subcommittee when my boss, Senator Nunn, was
the chairman. This subcommittee, in my view, is the most
important one on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I was
here 24 years, 14 years as either the minority or the staff
director, because it affects every single thing in our
military, the men and women, the families, retirees, and the
people in our military are the heart and soul of the military.
That's what makes it the world's finest military, and this
subcommittee has always been ahead of the Pentagon. This
subcommittee had to save the volunteer force from going under
in the late 1970s and early 1980s--John Tower, John Stennis,
Sam Nunn, John Warner.
When John McCain and John Glenn were at the helm of this
subcommittee, they kept from breaking the force when we drove
down a million people at the end of the Cold War. This
subcommittee, when the hot war started after 9/11, made sure
that our military and the families had the support they needed,
and they've always been ahead of the Pentagon. If you wait on
the Pentagon to basically come in for all the changes that are
needed, they won't get done. We're at that same standpoint
today.
The other thing that I would say is they've got the great
staff on the Personnel Subcommittee, and I'll give you a pretty
good example of why we need to make the changes. I see in the
back of the room the Honorable Robert Wilkie, an individual
I've had the privilege of knowing and working with for decades.
He served on Active Duty, served in the Reserves, worked on the
personnel staff, worked on the committee staff, went back on
the personnel staff, served in high-level positions in
government, served in industries. Guess what, Members of the
subcommittee? If he'd been under the strictures of Defense
Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA), Reserve Officer
Personnel Management Act (ROPMA), he wouldn't have been able to
have that career.
That's the kind of flexible career, Senator Gillibrand,
that you talked about that we need in the service. We need to
make it easy for people like Mr. Wilkie and others, others on
the staff who have served in the military, to come in and out
and have different positions, learn more, go to ever-increasing
periods of responsibility, and we don't have that today because
today's manpower and personnel systems basically assume we want
every single person that joins to be the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs, and so we manage them that way.
That's not what industry does today. This will not keep our
volunteer force, the world's finest military, 10 years from
now. The changes you have to make, some are immediate, but most
of them you'd have to phase in over a 10- to 15-year period.
That's why the subcommittee has got to get out in front of the
Pentagon.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of General Punaro follows:]
Prepared Statement by Major General Arnold Punaro, USMC (Ret.)
Chairman Tillis and Ranking Member Gillibrand and members of the
committee: Senators Ernst, Graham, Sasse, McCaskill, and Warren, I want
to thank you for the opportunity to appear today with Senator Jim
Talent and Ms. Kathy Roth-Douqet to discuss the work of the Bipartisan
Policy Center's Task Force on Defense Personnel in producing its report
entitled Building a F.A.S.T. Force: A Flexible Personnel System for a
Modern Military. I was honored to work with them and many others on
this very important subject.
The report produced by the Task Force presents its assessment of
the Nation's imperative to improve DOD's defense personnel systems to
better meet ever changing future national security needs and our
country's evolving service-age population. It offers a comprehensive
package of 39 bipartisan proposals to improve the effectiveness of
military personnel policy. As a whole, these recommendations aim to
prepare the military to confront the threats of the future while also
keeping promises made to today's servicemembers.
I appear here as a private citizen and a member of this Task Force
and do not represent the Secretary of Defense Reserve Forces Policy
Board which I chair, nor the Defense Business Board or National Defense
Industrial Association on which I served. I believe, however, that my
personal and professional experience is relevant to these matters. I
have served 24 years with the Senate Armed Service Committee with 14 of
those years as the staff director supporting the Chairman and the
Committee as well as 35 years of commissioned military service in the
U.S. Marine Corps. I chaired the Independent Commission on the National
Guard and Reserves from 2005-2008 which Congress established to assess
the future roles of the Reserve components. As a Marine Major General,
I also served on the Reserve Forces Policy Board (RFPB) for 5 years
prior to retiring in 2003, and I have served as the Chairman of the
newly structured independent RFPB under four Secretaries of Defense
since 2011.
I would like to personally commend the members of this subcommittee
for the work they have done to improve the lives of our soldiers,
sailors, airmen, marines, and coastguard. The Fiscal Year 2017 National
Defense Authorization Act and the personnel reform initiatives
contained within it are just some of the examples of how you have led
the way in tackling tough issues and making much needed reforms. I can
speak from personal experience that this subcommittee and its House
counterpart have stayed in front of the Pentagon for decades.
Many of the challenges the Department of Defense (DOD) faces will
take years to address. We can rest assured, though, that despite the
strategic challenges throughout the world, the United States military,
as the bedrock of national security, protects our citizens and
interests, preserves regional stability, renders humanitarian
assistance, and imparts stability to the world. The demands on our U.S.
military personnel have never been greater, and our soldiers, sailors,
airmen, and marines form the foundation of our national military power.
An outdated personnel system, rising personnel costs, and the growing
divide between our military members and the Nation they serve pose
significant challenges to recruiting and retaining the most talented
people necessary to meet our country's ever-changing security needs.
the personnel system--time for a change
The combination of statute, regulation, culture, and tradition
which forms the Department of Defense's Personnel System is long
overdue for reform. Defense personnel management statutes, policies and
information systems have not kept pace with demographic or
technological changes. While core U.S. national security interests have
largely remained constant in the quarter-century since the end of the
Cold War, the threats arrayed against those interests have changed
dramatically. Today's global security environment is more complex and
unpredictable than ever before. This environment should be the primary
factor for policy makers when deciding how to reform the personnel
system.
Personnel management reform should include a strategy for a modern
military workforce that is diverse, technologically skilled, and
provides flexible career opportunities. This new system must be viewed
by potential entrants as a desirable and competitive career option;
attracting high quality recruits and maintaining the best and the
brightest for advancement and leadership of the Nation's Military
Services. It must develop professionals, promote institutional values,
embrace diversity, and maintain key elements of service culture. It
must produce a force that both represents and is connected to the
population it protects. The system must be fair with transparent
policies, practices, and processes. It should be cost effective,
produce ready servicemembers, and be seamlessly integrated across
components. It must be much more flexible and incorporate world-class
business practices in terms of assignments, advanced schooling and
training, family considerations, and non-traditional opportunities.
Ultimately, our Armed Forces must remain capable of deploying rapidly
and sustaining military power in response to a variety of threats at
home and abroad to win the Nation's wars, support our allies, and
defend our interests.
The Defense Officer Personnel Management Act of 1980 (DOPMA) and
its follow-on Reserve component counterpart, the Reserve Officer
Personnel Management Act of 1994 (ROPMA), updated the original 1947
personnel policies in place for much of the Cold War. Three of the
things Congress hoped to accomplish with DOPMA included providing a
predictable and uniform promotion system, standardizing career lengths
across the Services, and ensuring proper proportionality of senior
officers through the force. The first step to essential modernization
of the personnel system is to provide flexibility by making bold
statutory reforms to DOPMA and ROPMA. I had the opportunity to work on
DOPMA with my boss, Senator Sam Nunn, as a relatively new Senate
staffer in the 1970s. He chaired the Manpower and Personnel
Subcommittee when DOPMA was revised over a 4 year period in the late
1970s. By then, the system which was developed right after World War II
had been in place almost 25 years and we knew some changes had to be
made as the military adjusted to the newly formed All-Volunteer Force.
We also knew then that some of the policies we enacted would need to be
revisited in the future. However, there have been very few significant
changes in almost 40 years, and some view the current system as an
inflexible Cold War-era relic. Our current personnel policy is complex
and burdensome to not only the individual military member and his or
her family, but also to the organization.
Unfortunately, there were some unintended consequences resulting
from DOPMA/ROPMA implementation, one of which is the ``up-or-out''
promotion system. Officers generally have two opportunities for
promotion at each grade. Those who twice fail are required to separate
from the service, retire if eligible, or continue to serve until
retirement in their current grade with a waiver with no chance of being
promoted. Subsequent legislation, such as Goldwater-Nichols, created
requirements for officers to accomplish specific items primarily
related to joint service--check certain ``boxes''--at certain times
throughout their career to remain competitive. This time-based career
management system created an officer corps with a lack of professional
diversity in terms of career experiences. It also heavily discourages
servicemembers from pursuing alternative career paths and often
penalizes non-conforming career choices. ``Up or out'' instead pushes
servicemembers out of the force when they are most experienced. A
competency-based career management system, organized around the mastery
of knowledge, skills, and abilities, would encourage more flexible
career paths, thereby permitting longer assignments, greater
opportunity for graduate education, time-outs for family
responsibilities, the lateral entry of skilled professionals, and
longer overall careers. Such changes better reflect the new career
patterns in the private sector and offer a more competent and seasoned
force with less turnover and attrition.
From 2005 to 2008, I was fortunate to chair the independent
Commission on the National Guard and Reserves established by the
Congress and we addressed these very issues. The Commission recommended
that Congress implement a more flexible promotion system based on the
achievement of competencies. Under this new system, the timing of and
opportunities for promotion should vary by competitive category (career
field), depending on service requirements. \1\ The Task Force report
also makes the correct point that both the up-or-out nature of the 20-
year career and the limited ability for the military to quickly meet
manpower needs create inefficiencies, resulting in higher costs. \2\ As
RAND economist Richard Cooper testified to Congress, the only way to
truly control costs for the professional military is to change the up-
or-out promotion system to selectively reduce personnel turnover and to
change accession requirements. \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Commission on the National Guard and Reserves: Transforming the
National Guard and Reserve into a 21st Century Operational Force,
January 3 L 2008, 19.
\2\ Task Force on Defense Personnel, March, 2017, 25.
\3\ Bernhard Rostker. I Want You' The Evolution of the All-
Volunteer Force. RAND Corporation. 2006. 365. Available at: http://
www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG265.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Merging DOPMA and ROPMA into a single system would create a
personnel system best suited for today's military ``Total Force.'' The
Total Force includes all organizations, units, and individuals that
provide the capabilities to support the Department of Defense in
implementing the national security strategy. It encompasses the regular
Active component members, the Reserve components, which includes the
National Guard, civilians, members of the Individual Ready Reserve, and
contractors. In implementing policy reforms for the Total Force, the
Reserve components must certainly be included. They have transformed
from a seldom-used Cold War Strategic Reserve in the 1970s and 1980s,
to an indispensable operational force that is frequently and routinely
employed to the meet the Nation's defense needs. The Department's
culture needs to change to embrace Active and Reserve members, as well
as civilian employees as members of the same team--not separate
competing teams. To that end, the Department should encourage and
incentivize continued service in the Reserves to preserve talent from
the Active component that would be otherwise lost through reductions or
routine transitions from the Active force.
The Department should encourage and facilitate a seamless
transition between the Active and Reserve components and remove
barriers impeding it. As the military strives to become more adaptable
and to better respond to an unpredictable security environment, it
should ensure the ability to quickly access talent in its Reserves.
Reserve component service should be an option throughout a military
career as a means of preserving costly investments in training and
experience.
To achieve this level of Active-Reserve permeability, Federal law
must be changed. Current law requires officers who desire to transition
between the Active and Reserve component to gain a separate Reserve
officer commission, through a process known as ``scrolling.'' This
process takes up to 6 months and likely discourages many highly
qualified personnel from continuing to serve in the Reserves. To
facilitate the transition, Congress should amend current statutes to
create a single type of commission, a ``universal appointment,'' in
lieu of the current regular and Reserve commissions. Our system must
provide greater opportunities to transition between the Active, Guard,
and Reserve components. Only after creating this culture of
permeability and support of a continuum-of-service paradigm will we be
able to recruit and retain the best talent for our military.
In addition to the key initiatives previously mentioned, the
Department should implement several other reforms to create a personnel
system that improves the career management, permeability, and
flexibility of service options, and makes the best use of civilian and
military skills found throughout the Total Force.
The Department should create an integrated Total Force pay, travel,
and personnel management system that is modernized and accessed through
mobile technology. This system will increase permeability by enabling
streamlined transitions between components. Additionally, it will
improve the ability of Reserve component members to manage their
careers by enabling seamless movement of all administrative and other
records between components/services. Both the Army and the Air Force
are currently working to field Integrated Pay and Personnel Systems--
Army (IPPS-A) and Air Force Integrated Pay and Personnel System (AF-
IPPS)--which could serve as a model for the other Services. Earlier
attempts to field the same system DOD wide-DIHMRS-failed after
significant costs.
Some other personnel reforms may include employing best practices
from the private sector to advertise, apply for, review, and select
best qualified candidates for assignment to positions across the Total
Force. In order to provide access to the deepest talent pool possible,
it is also important to ensure all members have opportunities to
compete for special assignments or educational opportunities at pivotal
times throughout their careers without fear of their career being
negatively affected.
The Services are experimenting, on a very small scale, with
sabbatical programs to allow servicemembers on Active Duty to ``take a
knee'' for educational or other personal reasons. The Army's Career
Intermission Pilot Program is already seeing the first return of
soldiers to the force who took time off It is now time to broaden the
program and allow those in uniform to consider it as simply another
path possible on the way to a more fulfilling military career. These
opportunities should be available to all servicemembers in order to
meet the changing demands in their personal lives, for full-time
educational opportunities, or family and employment obligations.
Members should have the ability to pause promotion clocks during
periods where they would be less available for military service. During
periods where personal needs or civilian professional requirements make
military service difficult, pausing promotion clocks would prevent
members from being forced out due to lack of competitiveness for
promotion and allow them to continue service once these demands
subside.
Further, the Reserve component has great potential to contribute in
specialties that are more immediately transferable from civilian
occupations, such as health care, public affairs, and cybersecurity--
yet current policy doesn't maximize this potential. Especially after
considerable resources are spent training servicemembers, the military
is missing an opportunity when only a small percentage choose to remain
in the Reserves following completion of initial Active Duty service.
Let's take the cyber mission as an example. As the Department of
Defense builds the cyber force, use of these valuable skills developed
by civilian industry, at little to no cost to the government, can
provide immense benefits to the Department. The Reserve Forces Policy
Board formed a Cyber Task Group in 2013 to study the best use of the
Reserve component in this arena, and they made several key
recommendations. One of their recommendations was that Reserve
component personnel be included in the development of Cyber Mission
Force requirements which would reduce long-term costs, while leveraging
civilian-acquired skills, service-invested training and experience, and
enhancing continuity and longevity. The study recommended the Secretary
of Defense direct a Total Force approach toward manning the Cyber
Mission Force. The study also recommended U.S. Cyber Command and the
Services review niche cyber needs outside the Cyber Mission Force
construct to take advantage of the full range of civilian-acquired
skills within the Reserve component. \4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Reserve Forces Policy Board. Improving the Total Force: Using
the National Guard and Reserves, RFPB Report Fiscal Year 2017-01,
November 1, 2016, 56-57.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As you know, the Fiscal Year 2017 National Defense Authorization
Act authorizes the Secretaries of the Military Departments to conduct
pilot programs to recruit and confer original appointments to qualified
individuals as commissioned officers in a cyber specialty. \5\ This is
certainly a step in the right direction, but it does not include
members of the Reserve component. I encourage you to expand this
authorization. If the Reserve component is utilized effectively, it can
be a valuable source of uniformed talent, with the added benefit of
valuable private-sector experience, oftentimes at a lower cost. This
concept benefits the nation just the same if military members leave the
Active component to pursue career goals in the private sector, yet
remain in service in the Reserve component.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ S.2943, Sec 509.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
rising personnel costs
Our domestic fiscal environment is just as challenging as our
complex and unstable security environment. Budget impacts created by
the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA) and sequestration have resulted in
deep cuts year after year to U.S. military readiness and capabilities.
Since passage of the BCA, security conditions have changed and are
dramatically less stable than they were in 2011. Military personnel
systems must be financially sustainable for the department and
taxpayers, and must complement-not displace-other national security
needs. A high quality, professional force must be competitively
compensated, but inefficient compensation costs cannot be allowed to
force out other military necessities. Honoring the commitments made to
current servicemembers, military retirees, and their families is a
military necessity and a moral obligation for policymakers. However, it
is also imperative to ensure that future generations of servicemembers
are competitively compensated while also having the best training and
equipment available.
By many accounts, the All-Volunteer Force (AVF) has been a great
success. It has provided the military with high quality personnel and
has proven effective in both peace and war. Military leaders,
politicians and the American people themselves all prefer it to the
alternative. It is here to stay. But it is expensive and the cost
growth trends are unsustainable on their current path for both current
and deferred compensation.
Former Secretary of Defense Thomas Gates, Chairman of the
Commission in 1970 that recommended the All-Volunteer Force, warned the
following three fundamental changes were needed to ensure
sustainability of the AVF: First, reform the up-or-out promotion
system; second, eliminate the cliff retirement system, which only
benefits those who stay 20 years and then incentivizes them to leave
right away; and third, change pay and compensation from one of tenure
and longevity to a pay system that rewards skills and performance.
Forty-seven years later, we've touched only a few of those items, so it
should not surprise us that former Secretaries of Defense, such as
Gates, Panetta, and Hagel, and many former senior military leaders,
like General Ron Fogleman and Admiral Gary Roughead have all stated
that the ``all in'' costs of the AVF are unsustainable. \6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ National Commission on the Future of the Army, (July 16, 2015)
(written testimony by Major General Arnold Punaro, USMCR (Ret.)).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The independent Congressional Budget Office and Government
Accountability Office have released a number of analytical reports
documenting this fact, as have many members of the think tank
community. A definitive work is the interim report by the Military
Retirement and Modernization Commission. Highly overlooked, this report
was published in June 2014 and consisted of over 300 pages of the full
costs related to running the All-Volunteer Force both inside and
outside DOD. They avoided any opinions, and stated just the facts,
which are inescapable: the all-in costs are well over $410 billion per
year; well in excess of the 30 percent of the DOD budget benefits-based
lobby groups are fond of quoting. \7\ This does not include the
staggering $1 trillion in unfunded liabilities for military retirees;
today, we have over 2.4 million retirees compared to the 1.1 million on
Active Duty. There is a consensus among defense experts from the left
and right that we need to address these adverse trends. \8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission,
Final Report, January 2015.
\8\ Punaro. NCFA Testimony
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Military personnel costs have increased sharply over the past 15
years. Since 2001, pay per Active Duty servicemember has grown over 80
percent (in current year dollars, or about 50 percent in constant
dollars). Military pay has increased 40 percent more than civilian pay
since 2000 and enlisted servicemembers are now paid more than 90
percent more than civilians with comparable education and experience
make (83 percent more for officers). Non-cash benefits cost a further
$48 billion a year--mostly for health care, but also for commissaries,
housing, and family programs. \9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Punaro, NCFA Testimony
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
One way DOD has adapted to these higher costs is by relying more on
the Guard and Reserves, a true bargain for the taxpayers in terms of
cost. Before the Vietnam War, the Guard and Reserves comprised only 26
percent of the Total Force. With the end of the draft and the
establishment of the Total Force policy in the early 1970s, the
proportion began to rise. By the end of the Cold War, when the full
cost of sustaining the All-Volunteer Force was becoming apparent, the
Guard and Reserves comprised 36 percent of the Total Force. In fiscal
year 2015, the proportion grew to 38 percent. \10\ In some services,
such as the Army, the Reserve component consists of roughly 50 percent
of the Total Force.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Reserve Forces Policy Board, Improving the Total Force: Using
the National Guard and Reserves, RFPB Report FY17-0 1 November 1, 2016,
18.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the Department faces fiscal challenges from internal cost growth
and external budget pressures, the question arises whether to continue
this long-term trend can be sustained. That requires an assessment of
relative costs and capabilities for Active Duty, Guard and Reserve
personnel.
All analyses show that Guard and Reserve forces cost much less in
peacetime. At the individual level, guardsmen or reservists cost 15
percent (according to GAO) or 17 percent (according to the National
Commission on the Structure of the Air Force) of comparable Active Duty
personnel.
However, the relative cost increases when full time support,
equipment, and operations are added. For ground units, analyses found
that Guard and Reserve forces cost the following proportion of Active
Duty forces:
Congressional Budget Office: 30 percent
RAND: 23-25 percent
DOD's Total Force Policy Report to Congress: 25-26
percent
Commission on the National Guard and Reserves: 23 percent
Reserve Forces Policy Board: 22-32 percent (all
functions, not just ground)
These standard comparisons capture pay, unit costs, and some
benefits. However, they leave out benefits that significantly increase
the Active Duty costs: PCS, commissaries, family housing, day care,
health care, dependent schools, and parts of retirement, as well as
costs borne by the Departments of Labor, Education, Treasury, and
Veterans Affairs. \11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ Punaro NCFA Testimony
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Reserve Forces Policy Board has shown that these benefits add
hundreds of thousands of dollars to the annual costs of one full time
Active Duty soldier. Some have argued that these benefits should not be
considered compensation, but are incidental to military life. I
disagree. These are services that civilians and reservists also use but
must pay for themselves. Further, like compensation, these benefits
exist to help recruiting and retention; if they do not, then they
should be eliminated. At the very least, we should agree with the
RFPB's recommendation that DOD needs to assess and better understand
these costs so future manpower analyses can be informed by accurate
cost data.
One area of success in utilizing the Total Force and reducing
overall costs while increasing efficiency is the U.S. Air Force and
U.S. Navy's successful integration of their Reserve component forces as
associate units and blended units through shared Active component and
Reserve component platforms. Under these concepts, a Reserve component
unit aligns and co-locates with an Active component unit in order to
utilize their platforms; or, conversely, an Active component unit
aligns and co-locates with a Reserve component unit in order to utilize
their platforms. This model of Associate Units and Blended Units with
shared platforms has been successfully tested and proven by the Air
Force and the Navy during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation
Iraqi Freedom. By combining Active component and Reserve component
capabilities into multi-component units, there is potential for large
cost savings and increased readiness within the Reserve component
operational force due to an increase of Active personnel in the units.
Alternatively, there should be enhanced opportunities for Guard and
Reserve personnel to serve on Active Duty staffs and in key positions
that are traditionally held by Active personnel to help prepare them
for senior assignments. This would also create a larger pool from which
to select senior Reserve component leaders.
Another concept would increase the numbers of Active component
military members serving in Reserve component units (under the NDAA
1992 instituted Active Component / Reserve Component Title 11 program).
History suggests that title 11 programs have never been fully manned.
Additionally, the title 11 program was not highly regarded as career
enhancing--particularly for O-6s competing for General Officer/Flag
Officer promotion. Therefore, in order to have better integration in
the Total Force, measures should be taken to make these assignments
attractive. As an example, the USMC Reserve's Inspector Instructor
Program could serve as a model for the other Services to utilize as a
Title 11 Reserve component integration tool.
In this fiscally constrained environment, it is also essential that
we maintain an Operational Reserve. An Operational Reserve provides
ready capabilities and capacity that are accessible, routinely utilized
on a predictable basis, and fully integrated for military missions that
are planned, programmed, and budgeted in coordination with the Active
component. \12\ This was one of the fundamental issues the Commission
on the Guard and Reserve was asked to study. I was a skeptic going into
this task-I knew the difficulties associated with the changes in
policies, budgets, and laws that would be needed. After two and a half
years of study we came down fully in support of the Operational Reserve
as supported by DOD. I am even more convinced now that maintaining an
Operational Reserve is essential. This does not mean the balance and
mix of the Total Force should remain static and conform to the current
plans, or that every unit can always be at full-combat readiness at all
times. But an appropriate mix is essential.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ Reserve Forces Policy Board. Improving the Total Force: Using
the National Guard and Reserves. RFPB Report FY 17-01, November 1,
2016, 34.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Nation can ill-afford to ignore the rich capabilities of the
National Guard and Reserves or the lessons learned and experience
gained over the last 15 years of combat and other operations. Reserve
component members bring unique capabilities and professional expertise
to the Total Force gained through years of experience in the civilian
sector. The Department must learn to better exploit this expertise
going forward. Rich repositories of talent reside in the Reserve
component that is cost-prohibitive to develop in the Active component
(i.e. doctors, nurses, lawyers, computer analysts, cyber experts,
engineers, etc.). After enduring a period of significant force
structure reductions and budget cuts, continued investment in a strong
National Guard and Reserve Force provides numerous benefits to the
Total Force and is essential in achieving U.S. national security
objectives going forward. It is equally vital that senior leaders
understand the importance of, and define specific roles for Reserve
forces in future strategic and operational plans.
bridging the growing civilian-military divide
The growing civilian-military divide cannot be ignored. A key
component in looking at this issue is the Abrams Doctrine, first
articulated by the legendary Army leader General Creighton Abrams. That
doctrine is just as relevant today as it was coming out of the divisive
Vietnam War: the Army should not go to war unless the Nation goes to
war, and the Nation goes to war only if the Guard and Reserve are
mobilized to join the fight. \13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Punaro NCFA Testimony.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As a relatively new Senate staffer in 1973 with a tour as a Marine
infantry platoon commander in Vietnam in 1969-1970, I had a chance to
meet General Abrams when he came to see my boss, Senator Sam Nunn.
General Abrams outlined to Senator Nunn how to maintain a powerful Army
as the size of the Active Army was decreasing since the U.S. combat
role in Vietnam was drawing down. 1973 also marked the first year the
All-Volunteer Force came into effect. Abrams embedded a relationship
between the Active and Reserve components within his new force
structure so close that it would be impossible to employ the Active
Army in major conflicts without relying on the Guard and Reserves. And
he ensured, as the Active force was drawn down, that the Army's combat
power was increased. He made the Guard the combat Reserve of the Army
and placed significant combat support and combat service support
capabilities in the Army Reserve. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird
used this philosophy to create the Total Force policy implemented by
Secretary of Defense Jim Schlesinger. It has proven incredibly
successful.
Before I met General Abrams, I had no intention of going into the
Marine Corps Reserve-the Reserves were not viewed with the same
prestige in the 1970s as they are today. But his vision of their
importance convinced me to join. However, the capabilities and the
cultural barriers did not change overnight, and only took place after
the call-up of the Guard and Reserve in Desert Shield and Desert Storm,
the increased use of the Guard and Reserve during the 1990s, and the
over 945,000 servicemembers that have been mobilized since 9-11. \14\
General Abrams' vision has now been proven correct many times over. The
country requires a powerful ground force, and the Total Force Army is
embedded in the fabric of our Nation from its revolutionary roots, and
this same doctrine applies to all of our Reserve components.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ OASD (Force Readiness) monthly report, April 20, 2017.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Many of you may have seen the change of responsibility between
Chief of the National Guard Bureau General Lengyel and General Grass in
August. I was present for that really inspiring event. I was struck by
the comments of then Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. The Secretary
said, ``Today 's Guard is battle tested--an agile, flexible, deployable
force wit h combat experience and a broad range of skills gained both
on the battlefield and in civilian life. The National Guard is a
critical component of our total force, bringing to bear the experience
and skills of our citizens warriors wherever and whenever needed to
confront the challenges of a complex world.''
This is a powerful statement from the then civilian leader of the
world's largest and most complex organization, with over 3 million
employees, including 1.3 million Active Duty personnel and 818,000
Guard and Reserve, over 5,000 facilities on over 30 million acres of
land worldwide, and an annual budget of over 580 billion dollars.
Carter went on to say: ``The more deeply integrated the Guard
becomes in all facets of planning and execution, the better prepared
the Nation becomes. The presence, skill and readiness of citizen
warriors across the country give us the agility and flexibility to
handle unexpected demands, both at home and abroad. It is an essential
component of the total force and a lynchpin of our readiness.'' Let me
repeat that--the lynchpin of our readiness . . . and they live in
communities throughout this great country.
In addition to members of the Guard and Reserve being an ever-
present fixture in our communities, there are other opportunities to
integrate military members back into society after their Active service
is complete. To partially address the issue, Syracuse University, in
partnership with DOD, the Schultz Family Foundation, and the private
sector, is participating in a job placement and training pilot program
at Joint Base Lewis-McChord and Camp Pendleton. They will launch
similar initiatives at 16 additional military installations over the
course of the next two years. The pilot program initiative is a step
forward. However, a more comprehensive program needs to be developed
that will provide a ``one stop shop'' for transition, ease military
members and their families into civilian life, and help to retain hard-
won combat experience and skills in the Total Force.
Military members are recruited and enter service from the
communities in which they grew up and went to school. Members often
return to these locations upon completing Active service and many
remain affiliated with the military by serving in a Guard or Reserve
unit or by joining the Individual Ready Reserve. Others leave the
military entirely and enter our Veteran ranks.
The current transition process begins and ends at their last Active
Duty location, which is very rarely in the community from where they
came or where they intend to live and work. While transition programs
have been improved, they don't really cover transitions beyond
discharge and are primarily focused on pre-discharge preparations. As a
result, separating servicemembers end their service in one location and
must abruptly begin new lives with little or no coordination between
their separation points and their ultimate home communities.
In order to provide a more holistic, coordinated transition and
promote the well-being of our members, families, and communities, DOD
should integrate and facilitate collaboration of all of the government
resources that are geared toward the transition process. This
recommendation was outlined in the April 2012 Report of the Reserve
Forces Policy Board on Avoiding Past Drawdown Mistakes to Enhance
Future Total Force Capabilities. In this report, the RFPB recommended
the development of long-term ``one stop shop'' Reserve community
transition centers, utilizing existing, and well-established programs
in community facilities throughout the country. \15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ RFPB Report, 63.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This recommendation could be executed as Military Entrance
Processing Stations (MEPS) ``in reverse'' that would serve as
transition facilities where servicemembers would complete the
separation process while experiencing a positive hand-off from the
military to their civilian communities. When service personnel first
leave their communities to begin their military service, they enter
service at a MEPS.
When they leave the military, they should transition at a
community-based location where all government agencies and community-
based organizations are present. These stations would optimally be
established in or collocated with existing Guard armories and Reserve
centers throughout the United States, of which there are 4,542. In
addition, the Guard and Reserve have more than 160,000 full-time people
already supporting these centers. This whole of government, whole of
society approach would provide direct links to employers, educational
and technical training institutions, local medical resources, Veterans
Service Organizations, local Chambers of Commerce, Departments of Labor
and Education representatives, and the full range of community support
agencies available to transitioning servicemembers and their families.
Embedding these facilities in Guard armories and Reserve centers would
also offer immediate access to those servicemembers who want to
continue to wear the uniform by facilitating instant entry into one of
the Reserve components or at least having them leave acquainted with
the range of options for continued service.
Recruiting for talent retention will become increasingly important
as Reserve component mobilizations and deployments continue to decrease
and sequestration budgets degrade readiness. In 2015, 165,686 non-
retirement servicemembers separated from the Active component and only
56,583 joined the Guard and Reserves. \16\ The Reserve component can
capture even more valuable talent, save training dollars, and achieve a
higher experience level across their forces if the Department would
proceed with this proposal.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ RFPB Report, 65.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Take for example, an Air Force enlisted aerospace propulsion
mechanic who completes his/her service at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, VA
and returns home to Atlanta, GA to be officially discharged. After
completing initial base out-processing functions at Langley, he/she
would report to Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia to
receive his/her discharge after linking into the ``total force and
total community'' resources already established there. At Dobbins
today, a Developmental Training Flight (DTF) unit prepares delayed
enlistment airmen for basic training and enhances their understanding
of the Air Force mission and military culture. Their mission could be
expanded to serve those airmen transitioning back to civilian life.
Dobbins ARB is near the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Atlanta
Regional Benefit Office, Atlanta VA Medical Center, Decatur Clinic, and
multiple community based outpatient clinics, Atlanta MEPS, and a
significant number of large civilian employers. Private sector
partnerships could be struck with companies like Delta Airlines, based
out of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, to secure
civilian employment for separating servicemembers. With points of
contact established by these community based entities in the Dobbins
Center, transitioning service personnel would be able to access all of
them. The servicemember separating at Dobbins would become acquainted
with Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard, and other Reserve component
opportunities in the local area and the benefits of Reserve component
service--things like TRICARE Reserve Select, tuition assistance, and
others. Whether the individual leaves at 4 years, 1 year, 12 years, or
20 years, this community-based transition program, vice an Active Duty-
based transition program underscores the commitment we make to the
force.
conclusion
As I close, I want to commend this subcommittee for taking a hard
look at these problems and identifying and implementing several key
reforms. Oftentimes, you have been on the cutting edge and well in
front of the Pentagon. The pilot program providing direct commissions
to cyber positions, shortening the length of joint duty assignments,
leave for primary caregivers after the birth or adoption of a child,
the Blended Retirement System, and granting equal survivor benefits to
Reserve component members are just a few examples from the last
National Defense Authorization Act. As a Nation, we need to keep moving
in a direction that recruits and retains the very best members for our
military in order to meet the ever-changing national security
challenges we face.
Thank you very much for offering me the opportunity to share my
views with you.
Senator Tillis. Thank you, General. Thank you for
recognizing truly the senior person. I learn from Robert Wilkie
every day. I call him Forest Gump because I tell everybody,
with all of his experience that you've summarized, he has a
story for just about everything.
Senator Talent. Mr. Chairman, he doesn't say that to every
subcommittee chairman either. When he says he likes this
subcommittee, he really means it.
Senator Tillis. Well, I agree. I think that you hit on
something very important, because the business of the military
and taking care of our personnel is really the scope of,
substantially the scope of this committee. There's a lot of
opportunity.
Senator Talent and I were talking about how the way that
we're going about reform and improvement right now is measured
and incremental, but it's things that are within reach that we
should focus on that over time make a huge difference, and I
think we saw good results out of the committee with the Ranking
Member and the then-chair, Senator Graham, and I'm hopeful that
we'll make even greater progress this year.
Because there are so many pressures, the op tempo, the
limited resources, the concerns with readiness, all these other
factors that affect morale and ultimately the ability to keep
the soldier at the same time lethal and safe are being
challenged, I think the things that came out of the task force
are very, very important, and very great cookie crumbs and
great indicators for places that we should prioritize, and I
appreciate your work.
I had one question on the lateral entry program. It has
more to do with the types of skills that you would most
likely--you would want to be looking for skills where you'd
really benefit, depending on where someone is experienced
coming from the private sector, and for some level of service.
How do you do that and do it in a way that makes the spouse at
home happy with the kind of compensation that they're going to
potentially receive? Because if you look at a cyber job, for
example, cyber talent right now is generally making, at least
in the industry I came from, highly skilled people start out in
the low six figures and move up from there.
So did you spend much time discussing those sorts of
challenges and have any thoughts on the subject?
Senator Talent. Yes, we did talk a fair amount about that,
and I think it would be important for the Department to have
the authority and the desire to structure fairly flexible
packages for people. Now, obviously, there are pay bands, and
this is not like hiring in Silicon Valley. But people don't
generally join the Armed Forces primarily for money. So the
idea is if there's a systematic effort to recruit people for
need for a mission that's recognized as important, I think we
can expect that a fair number of people with skills in this
area would be interested in being there, even though they would
take almost inevitably a financial hit, and I think this is the
history of the Armed Forces in our wars and our other efforts.
People have been willing to sacrifice.
The problem is when the process is so opaque either it
forbids it or you have to jump through so many hoops, and you
don't know when it's going to be resolved, and you don't know
if it's ever going to be resolved.
We had someone on our staff talk to a woman who was serving
in a non-profit, in a charitable role in Africa, and she wanted
to join to offer those kinds of skills to the military, which
we need in today's day and age, obviously, and it was so
difficult for her even to access the recruitment process. She
eventually was able to do it. I think she got help from a
congressman to be able to do it.
So the answer is I don't think the financial aspect of it
is--yes, for some people it would be an obstacle. I don't think
that's an insuperable obstacle if the process is made
receptive, clear, inviting, and the purpose of it is clear.
Senator Tillis. I think that's another reason why we have
to get--once you are part of the military, we've got to clear
up a lot of the other issues that you've outlined in the task
force report. If they move as they get deployed, they by
definition had a career outside of the military, they most
likely could go back to it, and that's why it's so important to
get a lot of these fundamental processes and policies that you
all have touched on with the task force right.
I have one question in my remaining time. I'll probably ask
some follow-up questions after the first round. But childcare,
in some ways the childcare discussion reminds me a little bit
about the VA discussion. There are the people who say it should
all be private. There are people that say it should all be run
by the Department. Did you all discuss an optimal mix or
whether or not you take a position at either of those two
extremes?
Ms. Roth-Douquet. We do believe it needs to be a public-
private partnership. There's an important role for the
government. The reason we need childcare for our Armed Services
is so that they can do their mission. So it really is a
national security requirement to have childcare for our
military families. That's why the government should be
involved.
But most people actually want childcare near where they
live, so that requires it to be private. They can't get that
childcare near where they live for two reasons. They can't get
off of the waiting list to get into those centers because high-
quality childcare is often multi-year waiting lists, and the
lifestyle of the military, the frequent moves, don't allow us
to ever get to the top of those waiting lists. Then it can be
quite expensive.
So either the Services can have a role to subsidize that
childcare, or as part of the national security requirement we
can look at ways to require a certain number of childcare
centers to both save space and make it affordable, and make
that a State or a County requirement. I think there are
opportunities to look at solutions, but we do need a solution.
Senator Tillis. Thank you.
Senator Gillibrand?
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you for being here.
Just on the childcare, to finish up, I like the last idea
the best because I don't think subsidizing is going to work
because there are a lot of venues where there's not enough
slots. I mean, there are States where there are not enough
slots for affordable day care. So are you directly recommending
that we do public-private partnerships to create on-site day
care, or are you suggesting some other method?
Ms. Roth-Douquet. Public-private partnerships to create on-
site would be fine, but also to require a certain amount of
spots are held, because it's predictable that military people
will come in.
Senator Gillibrand. Just as a national security priority,
if you host a base----
Ms. Roth-Douquet. Exactly.
Senator Gillibrand.--you are required to do so, some kind
of requirement from the State.
Ms. Roth-Douquet. That's right, and then we recommend an
on-base childcare coordinator to help both----
Senator Gillibrand. The problem with requiring it of the
State is that if there's a base, they're not getting tax
revenue. So you're already sucking up the sacrifice because
you're hosting a military installation and you're not getting
any tax base from that. So then asking them to invest more
might be hard for some States, although an excellent idea. I
just don't know how you would----
Ms. Roth-Douquet. Well, around BRAC, the BRAC analysis, you
have a good analysis of the amount of income that's brought
into an area because of a military installation. There does
seem to be terrific economic activity that is co-terminus with
the base. So you could balance that off, and also you could say
this really is something that requires a solution, that the
talent needs to get together with the installation to come up
with----
Senator Talent. Senator, can I just join for a second?
Senator Gillibrand. Yes, please. Go ahead.
Senator Talent. I don't think Kathy was talking about
requiring the localities to pay for the day care but rather to
hold a certain number of slots for service personnel. Or did I
get you wrong?
Ms. Roth-Douquet. Both to hold the spots, but then we are
going to need to address the cost. Somehow the cost needs to be
addressed.
Senator Gillibrand. The problem is there are a lot of
places that don't have enough childcare and not enough high-
quality childcare. I'll work on that idea about what's the
best, something this committee can work on, what's the best way
to facilitate it, subsidize it, or support it meaningfully.
On cyber, what are your views of how the Department is or
is not using the ability to use Reserve components and civilian
personnel to fill cyber needs?
General Punaro. Senator, from my experience, and also as
the current chairman of the Reserve Forces Policy Board,
although I'm not speaking in that capacity here today, I want
to make that clear, it's moving in the right direction, but
it's not moving fast enough. Certainly, in speaking of lateral
entry, there are areas, as Senator Ernst knows, where you have
individuals in their civilian skills that are in the military
in that same skill. They tend to be much more experienced and
mature than what we're able to train in the Active Duty
military.
Cyber is so complicated and so difficult, as Senator
Tillis, the chairman, pointed out. It takes them 3 to 4 years
to train somebody to be in the cyber mission force up at Fort
Meade. Once they're trained, they're off Active Duty within a
year or two of that, and they're going right out into the
private sector for those big jobs. We'd like to capture them in
the Guard and Reserve because then we don't lose that benefit,
plus we have them available.
But when they started the cyber mission force, the 6,000,
it was all Active Duty with no Guard and Reserve. You know the
statistics. The Guard and the Reserve, when they have--I don't
call them competitions, but when they have these exercises,
they always do a lot better because they're working at Google
and Microsoft. We can also site Guard and Reserve units in the
centers where you have--like Austin, Texas, and San Antonio and
Seattle.
So there's a lot more opportunity for the Guard and Reserve
to be used, and you've got to crank the Guard and Reserve into
the contingency option. I can speak from personal experience.
My youngest son, Dan, is a captain in the Army National Guard,
and he trained signal, and then he went cyber. He's got an MBA.
He's got a couple of technical degrees. Their unit, they're
standing up in Virginia, the first Guard cyber unit. Their role
is to augment the cyber mission force at Fort Meade. The skills
of the people in his unit are far superior to those that they
train on Active Duty.
So it's moving in the right direction. It's not moving fast
enough, and I think----
Senator Gillibrand. But what's making it slow? Because in
the last NDAA we gave them authorities for authorizing more
hires, and also direct-hire protocols and special pay
authorities. I've been pushing this for 5 years. Why are they
so slow?
General Punaro. The building defaults to they prefer Active
Duty because they figure, well, we've got them 24/7, and we
don't have the aggravation of having to bring in the Guard and
Reserve and the complicated duty statuses, 32 separate duty
statuses now. The committee and the Department are working to
reduce those down, but it's a cultural thing, Senator. They
just like Active Duty. That's just their default position. It's
quicker for them, but it's more expensive, and the people
aren't as skilled.
Senator Talent. This is a partial answer to your concern,
Mr. Chairman, because to the extent that we can make this
capability resident in the Reserves so they can continue
working their regular jobs, the financial issue that you raised
begins to go away.
Senator Tillis. Senator Ernst?
Senator Ernst. Thank you. Well, this is a great discussion,
so thank you to the panelists for being here today, I
appreciate it.
Just following up on some of this discussion about those
high-level skills that we need in the military, Senator Talent,
you had mentioned I think the pilot shortage that we have. What
about requiring longer commitments for those that are trained
as pilots and then go into those specialty areas? Maybe instead
of a 4 to 6 year commitment, maybe they have an 8 or 10 year
commitment. Is that something that has been considered?
Senator Talent. I don't recall us talking about that
specifically. Now, where we do get at that is in the
recommendations regarding altering the up-or-out system, and
the way the promotion and career progress in the military is
pegged to command. I mean, the system basically assumes that
everybody in the service wants to eventually become Chief of
Staff and puts them on a career path to become Chief of Staff.
Well, you know this.
I think there are many pilots--and we did have evidence to
this effect--they want to fly. They don't necessarily want
command. If they're pushed into a system where they have to
train, have to do things that aren't part of their vocation and
their love, or if they're pushed out because they're not being
promoted according to the terms of that system, then we lose
them. We did discuss that an awful lot.
I don't see any reason why, if we had a more flexible
recruiting system, why you could not try and negotiate packages
like that. I think you'd probably have to have compensation
flexibility to do that.
General Punaro. So, for example, when we created the
medical school at Bethesda for military doctors in the early
1970s--Scoop Jackson was one of the leading advocates of that--
it took almost 10 years. They've got almost a 10 year
commitment after that. The academies, I think they have 6 years
now, 5. That ought to be longer. They're getting a huge,
expensive education, and the statistics are they don't stay any
longer than the OCS [Officer Candidate School] or the ROTC
[Reserve Officers' Training Corps] people. A lot of them do
stay.
But pilots, the up-or-out system takes people--if you're a
major and you're the best squadron maintenance officer that
they ever had in that squadron, and that's all you want to do,
why can't you do that and stay in and do it longer? But the up-
or-out system doesn't allow you to do that.
I think the payback period--for example, on cyber, we
spend--I mean, if you want to be cyber trained in the military,
you've got 2 to 3 years' worth of schooling. Just the basic
cyber warrior now at Fort Gordon is 9 months. They ought to
incur an obligation for training for these specialty skills
that are in high demand on the outside, and as Senator Talent
said, a lot of people--so, telling a war story here, as a
general officer I didn't get a lot of military air, but if I'm
flying down to Camp Lejeune, you can't ever get there, so you
get to fly at Andrews. I said, I don't want to fly at Andrews,
I want to fly to Fort Belvoir. Why? Because Andrews will be a
Gates Lear jet. It will be two Air Force 1st lieutenants who
have been flying for a year-and-a-half. I want to fly with the
Army out of Fort Belvoir in a C-12, a Beach Craft King Air,
because it will be a CW-05 who has been flying for 25 years.
Why can't we let people in the military fly for their
career and recognize they're never going to be Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs or Chief of Staff of the Air Force, and have a
payback period? But we don't let you do that.
Senator Ernst. Right, and I do tend to agree with that. In
the Reserves and the National Guard, we tend to be a little
more flexible. I have some great E5 truck drivers that want to
be truck drivers, or whatever the case may be. They may not
necessarily want to be a platoon sergeant or a 1st sergeant
someday. So I think it's great that we have that discussion. I
know Senator Gillibrand and I have talked about that with the
JAG Corps [Judge Advocate General]. Some people want to be
prosecutors. They don't want to be stuck somewhere else leading
an admin team or whatever it might be. So I think that's very,
very beneficial.
But one thing with recruitment from the civilian ranks,
whether it's in cyber or other areas, if you're looking at
somebody who has already developed those skills, during his
confirmation hearing Secretary Mattis had mentioned that the
warrior ethos is not a luxury, it is essential when you have a
military.
So pulling somebody maybe out of a Google or a situation
like that, understanding it is still the military and there is
a different culture within the military, and there are
standards that have to be adhered to, maybe those standards
could be broadened a little bit, but understanding it is still
the military, how do you address that?
General Punaro. Well, I think, for example, in the Vietnam
era you had the planners that came in after their medical
school and served on Active Duty, and they would put their
captain bars on and go right in and didn't get any training in
how to be an Army soldier. They need to do that. But today,
Senator, we have 350,000 Active Duty military serving in
inherently non-governmental jobs. They're not in anything that
has to do with the warrior ethos.
So what I would do is I'd try to get our Active Duty
military back out on the tip of the spear. By the way, we've
cut the war-fighting forces by 250,000 people. That's where I'd
focus the warrior ethos. Everybody that comes into the
Department of Defense is not going to be a warrior, and we
ought to get our Active Duty military and have the warrior
ethos there, and the Guard and Reserve, and have these other
jobs filled by either civilians or contractors. Some of them
don't even have to be done at all.
But you're right, you want people to basically have the
history, tradition, and culture, but they can get that going
pretty quickly on the Active Duty military side.
Senator Talent. Senator, I think you've touched on an
important issue which we did discuss a lot. This system does
work for certain core functions. I mean, that's why it's there
and why it's lasted so long, what we think of as the
traditional war-fighting functions. I do think you should be
careful that in any changes you make you don't do any harm to
the system where it is functioning well.
I also think that in our discussions with the former
general officers and flags who are on the task force, it's
going to be easier to really get the cooperation of the
building if they see that you all are sensitive to the fact
that the traditional cultural norms are very important for
everybody.
At the same time, as General Punaro said, we do this
already. We do it with military lawyers. My wife was ROTC, and
then was in the JAG Corps. She went through enough training to
understand and inculcate the basic norms of the service, and we
all think that that's important. But as a practical matter, we
have a lot of specialties and a lot of technical MOSs [military
occupational specialty] where you don't need to do that the way
you would if your goal was to command an armored brigade.
Senator Ernst. Thank you.
Ms. Roth-Douquet. If I might just add, too, that one of the
strengths of our military is that it is imbued with the culture
of the civilian society, the citizen soldiers. The Services did
not want us to move to an ROTC system in the early 20th
century. They were worried that that would remove us from the
warrior ethos. But our political leadership made a decision
that this is the strongest way for a democracy to lead in the
world, is to be trained in all aspects of society and bring
people from all aspects of society.
So I believe that broadening this actually strengthens the
military, even though it may make people uncomfortable who are
in the Services in the short run, but that's part of our
political leadership's opportunity to help us with.
Senator Ernst. Thank you very much.
Senator Tillis. Senator McCaskill?
Senator McCaskill. Thank you so much, and a special welcome
to Senator Talent. It's very good to see you, and thank you for
your work on this, and to all of you for your work on this. I
really appreciate the recommendations. I think many of them are
good, old-fashioned--I would call it Missouri common sense that
we need to adjust and evolve in terms of the needs of our
military.
I particularly was supportive of the recommendation to
include all young American adults as part of the Selective
Service System. I think that's an important marker that we need
to put down. We came close to doing that last year, and the
thing got stymied. I don't remember why. We've all been stymied
so many times around here, it's hard to keep track.
I want to talk about an experience I had where I was going
around the state talking at various military bases in Missouri,
and I stopped at the National Guard unit out at Jefferson
Barracks where they stood up a cyber unit within the National
Guard, and much to my surprise, as part of that unit was the
premiere IT cyber specialist from Monsanto.
Now, you can imagine the kind of expertise you have to have
in cyber at a company like Monsanto, and they were telling me
about the skill of this man. I was very impressed with the work
they were doing and found out that he almost couldn't stay in
because of push-ups. I thought, okay, there is something wrong
here that we are pulling this kind of expertise into the Guard,
and then we are going to turn around and say we don't want you
because of push-ups.
I will just say that especially in the IT cyber area, the
one thing that is very clear to me after being here on this
committee for as many years as I have is the billions and
billions of dollars we have wasted in how we acquire IT for the
military, because the people who are deciding what we needed
didn't know what we needed, and they were depending on the
people selling it to us to tell us what they needed. So, of
course, the people selling it to us would say, well, we can
build that requirement for you, and we can build that
requirement for you, and we can do all this from scratch, never
considering anything off the shelf, and that's how you get into
the kind of problems we've had with DCGS [Distributed Common
Ground System], where it has been a multi-billion-dollar
project, still doesn't work very well. Off-the-shelf products
are going to work better.
I think it is time for us to consider, and I would ask you
all, do you believe that we could create a special category for
cyber warfare that would embrace the warrior ethos, because it
is a form of warfare, but maybe have less in the area of point-
of-the-spear traditional warfare-type training?
General Punaro. Senator, right in the bulls-eye with your
comments, and I think the answer is yes, and here would be my
comment on it. Let's take that individual in Missouri in the
Guard. That's absolutely a person we want in the Guard and
Reserve, and we want their skills. If that unit was more
integrated into the day-to-day activities of our Department of
Defense, particularly on some of the cutting-edge cyber
missions that happen at Fort Meade, that would incentivize the
people in that unit perhaps to basically get in a little better
physical shape.
I think you're going to have to have anybody that's wearing
the uniform meet the minimum physical qualifications. They
don't have to get 100 percent score on the PF-2, like everybody
in the Marine Corps does, but they can certainly do the minimum
number. I never could get 20 pull-ups myself. I did okay in the
military.
But the problem is you've got to incentivize them, and I
think that's the kind of person that the Active Duty military
should want involved, and more involved, but there's a little
bit of a push-back.
You certainly have categories in the military that have
different qualifications and different requirements. I mean,
you're going to have a much more stringent physical requirement
to be a SEAL [Sea, Air & Land] or be a recon ranger, but the
minimum standards aren't that tough, being candid. So I would
certainly think you'd want them to meet the minimum standard
and incentivize them to do that if they feel like that unit and
that individual is going to really be a cyber warrior.
We actually have in the Army now, the Army has a new
military occupational specialty for cyber. It used to be Signal
Ops. It's now at Cyber, and it's a pretty exciting thing, and
the other Services are doing that as well. Our Department of
Defense has designated cyber as a warfare domain. So I think
there is a recognition of the importance, and it's moving in
the right direction, but it's moving way too slowly.
Senator Talent. Most of what we've recommended they already
do for certain purposes in certain specialties. If the need
gets big enough, they'll crash to a work-around. So I think
what we're saying is systematize it, think about it beforehand.
I agree with General Punaro. As a matter of fact, maintaining
good general physical standards is an ongoing challenge for the
force, and we wouldn't want to suggest that people can be in
bad shape, but you don't need to do as many pull-ups to be a
cyber warrior, or push-ups. You're right, and when the need is
so great, we ought to have a system that's more flexible.
So a lot of these lateral entry things that we're proposing
involve flexibility in terms of standards, career progression,
that sort of thing.
Senator McCaskill. I just want to also say I was really
appreciative of the mention of childcare. It's a big deal, and
I appreciate that the bipartisan group called that out in the
report. It was terrific. I hope everybody on the committee
reads this. It's good work. Most importantly, I hope the
Pentagon digests it.
Ms. Roth-Douquet. If I could just echo that. In the Blue
Star Survey, when we asked everyone who took the survey what
one thing would they most like DOD to do to improve their lives
in the military--it was an open-ended response; people wrote it
in--the number one thing that servicemembers and their spouses
wrote in was improve childcare.
Senator McCaskill. By the way, the Guard in my state--I
don't know if you have that problem in Iowa or if you guys have
that problem, but the Guard in my state, one of the problems
when I did a roundtable with women in the Guard was finding
childcare for the weekends they had to train, because that is
not normal childcare hours, and I'm trying to put in the NDAA
[National Defense Authorization Act] some way that if they're
going to be training at a base, that they can access the
childcare facilities on the base for their children during
training, because it's a real issue for a lot of families that
are doing weekend training.
Senator Talent. Senator, generally speaking, if you look at
the surveys, and Kathy can speak to this at great length, we
tend to focus here, and certainly they do over in the building,
on solving retention and other issues through compensation or
bonuses or benefits, and that's important to families. I mean,
let's not say it's not. But what we were hearing back is a
greater and greater level of frustration that the system
doesn't seem to understand what they're dealing with.
At the beginning of the hearing Kathy mentioned, and she
certainly would know, just the fact that you all are holding
this hearing and are listening will be tremendously encouraging
to military families because they'll know somebody is paying
attention to it, and I think they feel like the system right
now is not.
Senator McCaskill. I think that makes sense.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Tillis. I'm glad I think there's consensus among
the four of us who are here about the childcare component. Down
in North Carolina with the large military presence we have,
there's never a time that I don't get together on the base or
in military communities where this isn't half of the
discussion. When you have questions or concerns about that, it
also distracts the person in uniform from what they're hired to
do, what they're doing in the military. So we have to work on
it, and I believe this committee agrees it needs to be one of
the key areas of our recommendations coming out of the
committee.
I have to agree that awareness of the--I guess, Colonel
Wilkie, you told me this before. I don't know if he's here
right now, but is it 11 states? What's the percentage of----
Colonel Wilkie. As Senator Talent said, over half of the
Officer Corps comes from 11 states.
Senator Tillis. Yes. So even in North Carolina, where you
have the tip of the spear, the global response force down in
Fort Bragg, you have Camp Lejeune, you've got the largest Coast
Guard air station in the United States, a lot of people in
various branches, in various national defense positions, all
you've got to do is get to Raleigh and the awareness of the
military and any connection to the military goes away. You get
to Charlotte and it's even further.
I like the idea of the military aptitude test, moving that
forward to the point of registration. Was there any discussion
about even earlier in the cycle, like in high school?
Senator Talent. I recall that we did discuss that somewhat.
We focused pretty much on the registration point because we
just felt that it was, first of all, an existing access point.
Second, with high schools, so many high schools differ so much
around the country, and then you'd have to pick out exactly
when, and we just thought that was the perfect opportunity when
they have to think about it a little bit anyway because they
have to register, to then provide for this.
Now, we did not work out the details of what kind of a
burden it would be and all the other things you'd have to check
out. But I think the potential in terms of raising awareness
and connecting young people to the military, at least for that
episode, is potentially very great. I really think it might
have a big impact on recruitment, and they could do some
recruiting things around that as well.
Senator Tillis. General?
General Punaro. I agree. I think that's very important. The
history has been a lot of food fights over the years to try to
give our military more access to the high schools. The Solomon
Amendment many years ago made it available. At least we can go
and recruit now.
One way of getting them earlier is through the Junior ROTC
programs. These are great programs. That needs resources. There
are places where they'd like to do it where they don't have the
resources to do it. But the sooner we can get to them--as you
know and the staff knows, the two alarming things that are
happening on the recruiting side--and again, we're talking
about we've got to have the world's finest military in 2025,
not just in 2017. The propensity to enlist is something they
track all the time. That's tracking down. The eligible
demographic of our 17- and 18-year-olds that are physically
qualified is tracking down.
The one that's alarming to me, and I know the staff will be
more current than I am, and they can track this down, we have
benefitted from the families that have served in our military.
Their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters serve in much
higher numbers than the regular population. That propensity
now, and it's a huge source of our military recruits, is now
tracking down for the first time, and that's because they've
looked and seen what their parents and their brothers and
sisters have done for the last 15 years, and they don't want to
do that.
So the sooner we can get and educate--and the other point
you make is, and this is why I think the Guard and Reserve
needs to have a more prominent role in the future, is because
of the disconnect between civilian society and our military. As
we neck down through five base closure regions, we've got parts
of the country that have no military presence whatsoever. Like
you say, even in a great state like North Carolina that
generates far more recruits, as does the South, 43 percent,
than any other region, you've got pockets that really don't
have that.
So that's got to be addressed. You can't have a strong
military and you can't be successful on the battlefield if the
American people are not connected to and behind our military.
Senator Tillis. Senator Gillibrand?
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to focus a little more on spousal hiring, and I'll
start with the childcare. So one idea for spousal hiring is
hiring spouses to work at these childcare centers, but I do
understand that there's a very, very cumbersome background
check process, along with Federal hiring timelines. How does
that impact the ability to make that happen? Related, what are
some of the other challenges you have for hiring spouses? I
know there are difficulties with the transfer of certifications
across state lines. I understand there are complications
because of budget uncertainty. What are your recommendations to
begin to solve some of these challenges?
Ms. Roth-Douquet. Thank you so much for asking that
question. For childcare, right now it's taking 18 months to get
background checks for childcare workers. If you're stationed
somewhere for a year or two, or even three, that's just a
barrier.
It's not actually only for childcare workers. It's actually
to volunteer to be a coach on a sports team or any other place.
There are huge bottlenecks.
One opportunity would be to allow anyone to get a check to
be certified from the time they become a spouse. This is true
for servicemembers as well, by the way, who leave service and
become a spouse, their prior----
Senator Gillibrand. So maybe we could authorize in the NDAA
that we want to create a certification process for these
various opportunities that you can do wherever you are, get it
done, it's all State certification, Federal certification that
should be usable anywhere you are.
Ms. Roth-Douquet. That would be tremendous. I think also to
allow certified people to provide childcare businesses on base
would be a great opportunity right now. Often that's not
possible.
Senator Gillibrand. Yes.
Ms. Roth-Douquet. Then in terms of two things for spouse
employment that would make an enormous difference and not cost
any budgetary dollars. One is 79 percent of military spouses
seeking jobs on bases, GS [general schedule] jobs, are not
getting them. We have the authority to hire them. People
typically think we can't hire them because there's a veteran
preference. Well, actually, under law we have the authority to
appoint a qualified spouse to a job. People simply aren't using
that authority.
Senator Gillibrand. We need to make a different preference
then? We need to change the language?
Ms. Roth-Douquet. We don't even need to make a different
preference. It exists. We need to direct them to actually do
it.
Senator Gillibrand. Do it.
Ms. Roth-Douquet. They actually have the authority, and
most people either don't know it--I think they probably just
don't know it. But installation jobs are excellent jobs for
spouses because they're career quality. They're GS jobs that
you can move up in them. The taxpayer saves money because when
you go overseas and you have a trailing spouse taking that job,
you're not paying the relocation allowance, the COLA [cost of
living adjustment], all the costs that you pay right now to
send a veteran overseas to do that same position for three
times the pay.
Another thing is licensing. Virtually every job in America
today requires a license, whether you're a dog groomer or a
nail technician or a lawyer. So even though there's been
progress made in transferability of licenses, again the actual
application of that has been spotty. Sometimes there may or may
not be authority. It may or may not be used. To create a
blanket authority, I think again under the NDAA--this was my
friend Senator Talent's brilliant idea--you must accept other
states' licenses for military spouses for a period of 2 or 3
years, or if you don't you have to waive the fees for them for
health reasons only, you have to waive the fees associated with
it.
As a matter of national security, and there's a good
argument to be made, we have statistics that show that spouses
who work are supportive of military service, are supportive of
recommending military service, those who do not feel their work
has been hurt by the military. It's 80 percent who feel it's
been hurt, only 36 percent of them are supportive of staying in
the military and recommending military service.
It's the one thing that not only keeps our families strong
but it also reduces the need to pay more for the people in
uniform because you increase their household income.
Senator Talent. Senator, if I could briefly, nobody speaks
about these issues as compellingly as Kathy. The two of us, the
whole task force discussed this question of State
certification. Kathy and I pushed pretty hard for a more
aggressive recommendation than what's in there. What we have in
there is that we recommend working with the States to try and
reduce this problem, which is certainly one way of dealing with
it.
Now, personally and speaking for myself, I would really
consider going much further and much stronger so that if
somebody is certified--and you could have a list of different
kinds of professions or vocations, and there may be some that
you feel are so sensitive in terms of State concerns that you
want to carve out exceptions for that, and I'll just pick one.
If somebody is a licensed dental technician and they're
licensed in Massachusetts, Senator, it's not some tremendous
threat to the dental profession if they get transferred to
California to allow them to practice their profession, and you
have authority to require that of the States.
If you sent a signal that you were going to, I think the
Governors Association at minimum would sit down and start
talking seriously, and you probably motivate the States. I
think this has real potential. I can't imagine anything more
frustrating than finally getting a job at one post or one
station, getting transferred without any notice, and then going
someplace and finding you've got to pay $2,000 or take an 18-
month course to get licensed. It's so frustrating. That doesn't
cost any money, really. The States should be sensitive to this
anyway.
So I hope you will consider it, but I can't say that that
recommendation is in the task force report.
Senator Tillis. Senator Warren?
Senator Warren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to
our witnesses for being here and for this thoughtful report
that you've put together.
I want to ask a question that's related to where Senator
McCaskill was going, but I want to ask a different part of it,
and that's about the recruiting and retention of highly skilled
and specialized technology jobs.
It seems to me that this is an area where we could probably
stand some improvements. In Massachusetts, for example, we have
some of the best computer scientists and engineers in the
entire world, and many of these men and women are looking for
ways to serve their country, but they may not think that they
are interested in a military career, and the military may not
think that they are interested in these people.
It seems to me that our military recruiting system is not
very well oriented to recruiting and retaining cyber warriors.
So can you all say just a bit about how we might change our
recruiting system so that we are identifying and recruiting the
best talent for jobs that aren't traditional military
specialists? Whoever would like to start on that.
Senator Talent. I'll just say, Senator, that's a big part
of our report, and there's a lot of precedent for this. You
know, when the need has been there and they've recognized it,
they've been able to do these things. William Paley, who was
the head of CBS or something, in World War II was brought in as
a PSYOPS [psychological operations] expert with the rank of
colonel. There was flexibility in those times to do it.
So I think what we recommend is that they at minimum
identify certain areas like you're talking about, and certainly
Boston would be a place, in the Boston area, where there's a
number of people who might be willing to consider this, with
certain specialties, certain skills. They can begin doing it
that way, which they really need, and then loosen the rules so
they can be more flexible in terms of what the commitment is,
maybe some flexibility on compensation, some commitments about
how often they're going to move, which would reassure the
family, flexibility in terms of rank and what their path for
promotion is, and then definitely ensuring that continuum so
that when they do leave Active Duty they go into the Reserves
and we don't lose those skills, and then it's easier to
activate them in the future.
But General Punaro will be the expert in this.
General Punaro. So I would say you're right, spot on. The
first thing that has to happen is our military has to do what
private industry is doing today, and that is they're looking at
2025 and 2030 and determining, if you're General Electric, now
headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, thanks to the taxes in
Connecticut----
Senator Warren. Actually, thanks to the attraction of
Boston, Massachusetts.
[Laughter.]
General Punaro. I won't get into that debate.
Unfortunately, the Celtics beat our team last night, but that's
neither here nor there.
They figure out in General Electric and all the big
corporations what are the skills we're going to need in our
company to be successful. We don't do that in the military
today. We're looking at, okay, how do we get our quota in the
next quarter or the next year.
So the first thing we've got to do is--and once General
Mattis and the team has the new strategy for that decade,
because it takes that long in the military, as our staff knows.
It takes 15 years to train a battalion commander and a 1st
sergeant in the National Guard. So what are the skill sets? We
know they're going to want the skill set you identified. We
know the military is going to be more technical.
Okay. Now that we know we're going to need that skill set,
what is the best way to bring them in? Should it be Active
Duty? Should it be Guard and Reserve? Maybe it's a defense
civilian. Maybe it's a contractor. Maybe it's an FFRDC
[federally funded research and development center], like
Lincoln Labs. Then you determine what's the right mix.
I'm a big supporter, as Senator Ernst and others know, of
the Guard as home base. So if you join the Guard in
Massachusetts, or you join the Guard in another state, you're
typically going to stay within that state. You're not going to
move all over the country like Active Duty. You can stay at
work in one of the great cyber firms and be promoted in your
civilian job and be promoted in your military job.
It's the flexibility. What we've argued in our report and
the good thing about the force of the future that Secretary
Carter did, not necessarily the solutions, but I think they did
a good job of identifying the problems--that would be a good
starting point as you look at what are the right solutions. So
we've got to make the military recruiting, retention, and
personnel management system much more flexible, just like we do
in private industry, just like you would do here in the U.S.
Senate. You move people around all the time. They can't do that
in the military today under DOPMA/ROPMA.
Senator Warren. Right.
Ms. Roth-Douquet. Just to add, Dr. Chu helped us with a
great suggestion about making G.I. Bill or ROTC relief
available for people with graduate degrees, so to bring in
someone with a graduate degree in computer science, forgive
their loans in exchange for that service could be a great
opportunity.
Senator Warren. Thank you very much. I just want to say on
this one, because I think it's really important, you talk about
the tools that are needed, but you're also talking about a very
different approach from a management perspective.
So I think it's going to take both. We have to think hard
to make sure that the tools are available, but we've also got
to think hard about how it is that our senior leaders in the
military approach this set of issues.
Go ahead, Senator, as long as our Chair is okay with the
time.
Senator Talent. From my time on the other side of the
table, I think as you approach this it's the old carrot/stick
thing. You're going to keep pushing, but I would also
encourage, both in hearings and in private conversations,
encourage the new Undersecretary for Personnel and the Chiefs
that if you try these things and something doesn't work as well
as we all hoped it would work, we're going to be understanding
from our side of the table. In other words--and again, I'll
speak as a former Member--it is a little bit unfair to push
them to do something and then really come cracking down hard on
them when they try it and it doesn't work. I'm not accusing.
You're certainly entitled to expect performance and the rest of
it, but I think if you sent that message along with the rest of
it, it would probably be okay.
Senator Warren. I think you're right. It seems like what we
do right now is we encourage risk aversion and just stick with
whatever you've done for the last 100 years rather than
encouraging people to take some risks, even recognizing there
will be some failures.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you.
Senator Tillis. Thank you, Senator Warren.
Before we got here, it reminded me of a line of questions
you asked a prior panel that had to do with helping the
transition out of the military into equivalent jobs, which is
another area we need to work on, because I think if we work
more diligently to define career path and align MOSs to
private-sector jobs that are appealing to people that are
currently in the military, then they're likely to stay there to
get that extra skill that at the point in time they decide to
separate they can very quickly go and get a private-sector job.
We've got to work on that.
That also requires the licensing for military spouses. It
requires stepped-up attention on the part of the States, and
it's something that perhaps this committee could look at. I
don't know if it's typical to have people from the Governors
Association here or legislators, but we really need to heighten
this.
Anytime I talk with state organizations, they're open to
the idea, but there's no one taking the lead to really force
real progress.
Senator Ernst?
Senator Ernst. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This is a great conversation. We're covering a lot of area,
and I think it is really important. Senator Talent, I'm going
to go back to something that had been one of your suggestions,
creating an adaptable workforce. You mentioned promoting and
compensating servicemembers based on merit, which I do think is
important. Our current pay structure provides no financial
incentive for our senior enlisted members to lead at the
highest levels outside of the Joint Staff, and I'll give you an
example of this.
So, you may have the senior enlisted advisor at PACOM
[Pacific Command], which literally covers half of the globe,
and that senior enlisted advisor is paid at the same base level
as a command sergeant major that's working for an O-5. There is
very little incentive for some of those enlisted members to
continue rising in the magnitude and the scope of their duties.
So do you think that linking compensation to that scope and
magnitude of an individual's duties is important?
Senator Talent. Yes, and we have a number of
recommendations, and you've referred to them, Senator, about
being able to adjust pay to criteria for performance other than
just simply time and rank. If we align that, then, with the
flexibility of allowing people to determine a little bit more
their own career paths and promotion paths, we begin to
individualize it a little bit more. So we then align the
financial incentives with creating greater satisfaction and a
sense that we have more control, and I think again it's an
enormous institution with 2 million people, if you count the
civilian employees, so they're not going to be able to
individualize this the way a small business would, and you
can't expect that. But I think we'll get more satisfied people
for longer, and I hope that--because they're really pressed,
obviously, from a funding standpoint. But I think if we can
increase the sense of satisfaction, then the compensation won't
be quite as big a factor.
But I certainly agree, and we do have discussion in here,
although not at great length, about the importance of applying
this to enlisted as well, these concepts at least to enlisted
as well.
Senator Ernst. Yes, I do think there's a lot of talent out
there and a lot of weight upon the shoulders of some of our
senior enlisted members. Our officers, when they increase in
levels of authority, continue to be paid more. But our enlisted
members do not. So I think that is a disparity that we need to
take a look at and reward those that want to stay and take on
greater levels of responsibility.
General Punaro. Thomas Gates, when he chaired the
commission for Richard Nixon that looked at whether we should
do away with the draft and go to a volunteer force and
recommended that, a recommendation that was opposed by every
single person in the military at that time even though the
Vietnam War draft was immensely unpopular for our military at
the time, it was a steady source of recruits. Gates said at the
time we should do this, and we did it in 1973. That was the
first year I showed up here on the subcommittee, and we had to
deal with the volunteer force, saving it over a 7 year period.
He said three things have to change or the volunteer force
won't be sustainable. One of them was get rid of the up-or-out
promotion system. Two was look at change in the cliff
retirement system in 20 years that encourages your most
experienced people to leave at 20 years, and now because they
live longer we pay them for 65 years to serve for 20 years.
Then the third thing he said was you've got to shift pay and
compensation from time and grade and rank to skills,
performance, and responsibility, and we need to make some of
those changes.
You'd have to do it gradually. You could do pilot programs.
We have skill and proficiency pay. You have jump pay and pilots
pay. But why shouldn't the person that's a command sergeant
major for the largest geographical command--that's certainly
something that ought to be looked at. The military will fight
this tooth and nail because they like the simplicity of every
E5 gets paid the same thing, whether you're a cook or you're a
tank turret mechanic. So it's going to take some real cultural
change. Hopefully they will be more open to it than they've
been since 1973.
Senator Ernst. Hopefully that cook would be making more if
I'm eating that food.
Do you mind if I just--I'm going to touch briefly upon
something, no need to comment unless you want to. But we've
been talking a lot about recruitment as well, and the ASVAB
[Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery]. I know in my
daughter's high school, which is very tiny in a very rural part
of Iowa, all of the kids in her senior class take the ASVAB.
That's something that's important to that school counselor, so
everyone will take that ASVAB.
Especially showing leadership I think is really important
when we're looking at young talent and encouraging that talent
to go into our service academies, and this is one thing that I
think we do a very bad job of as senators and congressional
Members, is making sure that all of our state allotments or
slots are filled and sending names to those service academies.
I know there are congressional Members that don't make
recommendations. They don't make recommendations, and I think
that is a horrible thing for that opportunity to slip away from
some of those young people in those states that may be able to
receive a high level of education that they wouldn't otherwise
receive.
So we need to do a better job at being leaders in that area
as well, and getting that talent to the right schools. So
that's my soap box.
Senator Talent. Senator, I could not agree more, and I've
always made that an important priority in my office. We tried
to work with the kids and tote up the number. Particularly in
the House I did this from the 2nd Congressional District in
Missouri, and then afterwards always had a party for those who
just got the recommendations. I'm digressing now but, I'll tell
you, if you want to be encouraged, and you all I'm sure do this
in one form or another, you get together all those kids who
sought to go to one of the service academies and their families
and you see the kind of young people that this country is still
producing. I'm telling you, that's an encouraging thing.
I could not agree with you more. I love the congressional/
senatorial recommendation aspect of this, and I think our
offices--because you all are connected to the people, and this
is a way of engaging through your offices. It engages the
public. People learn about this process because you're out
there talking about it. So I couldn't agree with you more.
Senator Tillis. I completely agree that one of the most
enjoyable parts is when we finish the selection and put forth
nominations for the academies we have a celebration and an
awards ceremony down in the state, and I'm completely recharged
while I'm in the presence of all these young men and women, and
on the ride home I feel completely inadequate as a high-
schooler when you see their 5.0 grade point averages and their
community service and all the things that they do. It is
remarkable, and it's inspiring. It gives me a lot of optimism
that if we get these sorts of policies right, that we can
attract even more and more of those people.
Senator Talent. Senator, I'm glad I was able to give
nominations because I could never have gotten one myself when I
was in high school.
[Laughter.]
Senator Talent. So I completely understand.
Senator Tillis. That's right. Incidentally, there's a lot
in the 39 recommendations. There's a lot of this report that we
have to digest, and I have a number of questions for the record
that we would like to submit.
General?
General Punaro. Mr. Chairman, before you close out, with
your permission, can I make a quick comment?
Senator Tillis. Absolutely.
General Punaro. The one thing that I take away from all
this--and thanks to the leadership of Jim Talent and Kathy. I'm
a Marine infantry officer. I grew up in the infantry. We're
kind of dinosaurs, but the one thing that I think is
dramatically different that we need to recognize here in the
committee and in the Department of Defense is the role of the
family. If we don't make some adjustments--in the private
sector, as you know; you're a businessman. I serve on the board
of a couple of the top universities in this country--for
example, Syracuse Maxwell. It's the number-one government
school. When we try to recruit a cutting-edge professor to come
to Syracuse, if we can't find an equivalent job for that
person's spouse, whether it's a man or woman or whatever,
they're not going to come.
In industry, in the industries I work with, when we try to
recruit a cutting-edge engineer or a software engineer, if we
don't have an equivalent job for the spouse, they're not going
to come. When I talk to the people who leave at 10 and 11 years
that we ought to keep--one example is a young Navy female pilot
who had a Bachelor's and Master's degree in aeronautical
engineering, a great helicopter pilot. The problem was the
spouse, the moves, and the fact that her husband was not going
to be able to work in his field, and they got out. Now, I
talked her into staying in the Reserves.
We've got to do something. I don't know the answer. I don't
know how to do it, and if it costs money, and I'm one that has
been exceedingly concerned about the long-term costs of the
volunteer force, there's probably stuff that we're paying over
here and we could move it over here. We have got to make a
fundamental change in the way that we deal with the military
family.
Senator Tillis. I agree. I think one of you mentioned the
need to pilot and try to take these things in steps so that we
can make progress and not make it too complicated and really
manage the size of the pilot so that we can get measureable
results, so we can dollarize.
General, you know the cost of attrition with the amount of
money that's being spent. I think that maybe investing in some
of the programs that really help the military families, the
other programs that are suggested in some of your
recommendations, that there is a way, if we focus this on a
methodical basis, to show the cost/benefit to this, because
it's precisely why you see businesses only going so far with
compensation when they look at other things, particularly the
generation that's coming up now that look at their engagement
with their employer beyond just the money.
So I think the more that we spend on that and the more that
we--there's a science to it in terms of personnel policies
ultimately affecting attrition and the cost of recruiting, that
there's a way to really justify, I think, these investments in
time and money.
But I thank you all for the hearing. I appreciate the
participation from the Members.
Senator Gillibrand had a pressing issue. She apologized she
couldn't stay. She always stays for the duration of these
hearings, but she had something taking her back to the office.
But I know the two of us on many of the subjects we talked
about today share common priorities. I look forward to working
with the committee to make recommendations that ultimately get
incorporated into the NDAA.
Thank you all for your time and the work on the task force.
We look forward to seeing you back before the committee.
This meeting is adjourned. The record will be help open for
a period of one week.
[Whereupon, at 3:45 p.m., the committee adjourned.]
[all]