[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ENSURING FORCE READINESS:
EXAMINING PROGRESSIVISM'S IMPACT
ON AN ALL VOLUNTEER MILITARY
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
THE BORDER, AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND ACCOUNTABILITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 28, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-15
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
_________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
51-720 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY
JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman
Jim Jordan, Ohio Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking
Mike Turner, Ohio Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Gary Palmer, Alabama Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Pete Sessions, Texas Ro Khanna, California
Andy Biggs, Arizona Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Jake LaTurner, Kansas Katie Porter, California
Pat Fallon, Texas Cori Bush, Missouri
Byron Donalds, Florida Shontel Brown, Ohio
Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota Jimmy Gomez, California
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
William Timmons, South Carolina Robert Garcia, California
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Maxwell Frost, Florida
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Becca Balint, Vermont
Lisa McClain, Michigan Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Greg Casar, Texas
Russell Fry, South Carolina Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Dan Goldman, New York
Chuck Edwards, North Carolina Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Nick Langworthy, New York
Eric Burlison, Missouri
Mark Marin, Staff Director
Jessica Donlon, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
Kaity Wolfe, Senior Professional Staff Member
Grayson Westmoreland, Senior Professional Staff Member
Kim Waskowsky, Professional Staff Member
Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5074
Julie Tagen, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
------
Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin, Chairman
Paul Gosar, Arizona
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Robert Garcia, California, Ranking
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Minority Member
Pete Sessions, Texas Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Andy Biggs, Arizona Dan Goldman, New York
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Jake LaTurner, Kansas Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Pat Fallon, Texas Katie Porter, California
Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota Cori Bush, Missouri
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Maxwell Frost, Florida
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on March 28, 2023................................... 1
Witnesses
Brent Sadler, Senior Research Fellow, Center for National Defense
The Heritage Foundation
Oral Statement................................................... 4
Meaghan Mobbs, Senior Fellow, Independent Women's Forum
Oral Statement................................................... 6
Jeremy Hunt, Chairman, Veterans on Duty, Inc.
Oral Statement................................................... 8
Lieutenant General David Barno (Ret.) (Minority Witness),
Visiting Professor of Strategic Studies, Johns Hopkins School
of Advanced International
Studies
Oral Statement................................................... 10
Written opening statements and statements for the witnesses are
available on the U.S. House of Representatives Document
Repository at: docs.house.gov.
Index of Documents
* Article, War on the Rocks, ``Addressing the U.S. Military
Recruiting Crisis''; submitted by Rep. Garcia.
* Article, War on the Rocks, ``Reflections on the Curse of
Racism in the U.S. Military''; submitted by Rep. Garcia.
* Article, War on the Rocks, ``The Deepest Obligation of
Citizenship''; submitted by Rep. Garcia.
* Statement for the Record, Blue Star Families; submitted by
Rep. Garcia.
* Letter to Director of Office of Presidential Personnel,
September 22, 2021; submitted by Rep. Grothman.
* Report, GAO, Active-Duty Recruitment; submitted by Reps.
Grothman and Garcia.
* Article, Military Times, ``The Military's Sexual Assault
Problem is Only Getting Worse''; submitted by Rep. Raskin.
* Article, The Daily Signal, ``4 Takaways as Lawmakers Probe
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion at Pentagon''; submitted by Rep.
Biggs.
* Article, Newsweek, ``As U.S. Military Faces Low Recruitment,
Senators Argue Biden Diversity Push ''; submitted by Rep.
Biggs.
* Article, Breitbart, ``Biden Defense Officials Defend
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion in the Military''; submitted by
Rep. Biggs.
* Article, Fox News, ``GOP Senator Unloads on Pentagon's
`Obsession with Equity Agenda: Totem Pole of Grievances''';
submitted by Rep. Biggs.
* Article, The Washington Examiner, ``House Republicans Hammer
Defense Officials on `Woke' DEI Initiatives''; submitted by
Rep. Biggs.
* Article, The Daily Caller, ``House Republicans Slam Defense
Secretary for Focusing on Pride Month, `Woke LGBTQ Agenda''';
submitted by Rep. Biggs.
* Article, Heritage.Org, ``Identity Politics and Critical Race
Theory Have No Place in U.S. Military''; submitted by Rep.
Biggs.
* Article, Hudson, ``Military Readiness Crisis Worsens Under
Biden's Watch''; submitted by Rep. Biggs.
* Article, New York Post, ``New Biden Equity Push Builds on
Efforts That Spawned 300 Woke Programs''; submitted by Rep.
Biggs.
* Article, Fox News, ``Pentagon Diversity Chief Receives No
Disciplinary Action After Probe into Anti-White Posts'';
submitted by Rep. Biggs.
* Article, Fox News, ``Senator Grills Pentagon on Six-Figure
DEI Jobs Advertised Across Military Branches''; submitted by
Rep. Biggs.
* Article, Heritage.Org, ``The Rise of Wokeness in the
Military''; submitted by Rep. Biggs.
* Article, The Daily Caller, ``These Are The Top 7 Times The
Military Went Woke In 2022''; submitted by Rep. Biggs.
* Article, Breitbart, ```Woke' DEI Chief for Military Base
Schools Disparaged White People''; submitted by Rep. Biggs.
* Article, Heritage.Org, ``Wokeness is Sabotaging the Military
Academies''; submitted by Rep. Biggs.
* Letter from Republican Members to Secretary of Defense, June
13, 2022; submitted by Rep. Biggs.
Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.
ENSURING FORCE READINESS:
EXAMINING PROGRESSIVISM'S IMPACT
ON AN ALL-VOLUNTEER MILITARY
----------
Tuesday, March 28, 2023
House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Accountability
Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:22 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn Office Building, Hon. Glenn Grothman,
(Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Grothman, Gosar, Higgins,
Sessions, Biggs, LaTurner, Fallon, Armstrong, Perry, Garcia,
Lynch, Goldman, and Frost.
Also present: Representative Raskin.
Mr. Grothman. The Subcommittee on National Security, the
Border, and Foreign Affairs will come to order. Welcome,
everyone.
Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any
time and without objection Representative Mike Waltz of Florida
is waived onto the Subcommittee for the purpose of questioning
witnesses of today's Subcommittee hearing. I recognize myself
for the purpose of making an opening statement.
Thank you all for coming to today's hearing and thank you
to our witnesses for coming to testify on this important topic
of military readiness.
I am proud to say the United States has the best and
strongest military of the world. From our special operations to
intelligence reconnaissance, to our air power strength to our
precision strike capabilities, our military capabilities are in
a league of their own. We all know the primary mission of the
armed forces is to protect and defend the Nation and our
interests abroad.
However, I am afraid, from talking to some people in the
military, the military is not the institution for social
experiments and political correctness. The Administration seems
to be willfully blinded by how its progressive ideals are
affecting military readiness and recruitment.
Not once in the Biden Administration's National Security
Strategy released in October 22, does it address the military
recruitment crisis we are having.
Today's hearing will examine how the Biden Department of
Defense has politicized the U.S. military and harmed its
ability to quickly respond to threats in our Nation.
In 2022, the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines all fell
short of their recruitment goals. Despite lowering fitness
standards, relaxing tattoo policies, and increasing recruitment
bonuses, fewer and fewer young adults are joining our military.
Meanwhile, the Biden Administration is more focused on how
cadets at military academies use correct pronouns rather than
to learn how to lead, work as a team, or defend our Nation.
The Biden Administration thinks that service members'
understanding White rage, as recently described by General Mark
Milley, our highest-ranking military official, is more
important than promoting cohesiveness throughout the armed
services.
Furthermore, this Administration has allowed active-duty
service members to take time off from their duties to obtain
sex change surgeries and related hormones and drugs at taxpayer
expense.
Legislation has been introduced in Congress that would stop
the teaching of critical race theory, or CRT, in the military,
stop the millions of dollars flowing to the creation of
diversity and inclusion offices, and would keep the thresholds
high for physical fitness requirements by our combat forces.
Service members within the ranks are speaking out about
these issues while military leadership continues to push the
Biden Administration's progressive agenda.
Data shows most Americans still trust our military. But
this trust cannot be taken for granted. The Biden
Administration can use to exploit the military for political
purposes and for experiments in social policy.
Today, our panel of experts will be able to shine a light
on how these progressive ideologies are harming our men and
women in uniform.
Again, thank you for all being here today and I look
forward to your testimony.
I would now like to recognize my good friend, Ranking
Member Garcia, for the purpose of making an opening statement.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I want to just begin by thanking our witnesses for being
here as well. I think we can all agree that our national
security and protecting our great nation and the lives and
safety of Americans is incredibly important and remains very
strong today.
We should also be very clear, and I think everyone can
agree here as part of this committee, that our military is
still the strongest in the world. We are leading global
coalitions across the country, in Europe, across Asia, and, of
course, we know that the U.S. spends more on national defense
than China, India, Russia, the U.K., Saudi Arabia, Germany,
France, Japan, and South Korea all combined.
And so, we continue to invest in our military, and we, of
course, you know, welcome the conversation of how we do better.
But this hearing today is not really focused on how we can do
better. It is focused on issues around what it means to be
progressive or what is being perceived to be happening in our
military.
It is important that we do not politicize our military,
that we do not focus on partisan issues. We should not be
focused on the issues that we brought up today by my Republican
colleagues.
But, instead, we should focus on what real--on what studies
and what the facts and the data actually say are causing issues
around diminishing recruitment and retention.
These are issues around sexual violence that we know still
exists in the military, the need for improved mental health
support for our service members, the need for reliable and
affordable childcare, which are incredibly important, and so
many others.
Even recent, numerous studies have shown that sexual
assault, mental health care, and affordable childcare still
remain the key factors in military recruitment, retention, and
readiness.
But none of those real factors are, unfortunately, what is
going to be much of the focus here at this Oversight Committee
today.
We want to ensure, and as our most senior military leaders
know and have pointed out, that focusing on the broader bigger
issues has to be a national priority. In fact, in the words of
the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley, he
quoted, ``I personally find it offensive that we are accusing
the United States military of being woke or something else
because we are studying some theories that are out there.''
I fully agree with the general and that our warfighters
should be open-minded and be widely read because they come from
the American people. These are quotes.
Here are the facts. America is not the same as it was in
the 1960's. We know that. We are recruiting from a generation
of young people who are the most diverse in American history.
We need to draw on their talents now more than ever. The
U.S. military needs all of our best and brightest and that
includes women, LGBTQ+ people, and people from all across this
country. Our military needs are changing, and I hope that today
we can focus on those broader issues.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Grothman. This is the first time behind this podium.
I am pleased to introduce our four witnesses today.
First of all, Brent Sadler joined the Heritage Foundation
after a 26-year naval career with numerous operational tours on
nuclear-powered submarines, served on the personal staffs of
senior Department of Defense leaders, and also served as a
military diplomat.
As a senior research fellow Mr. Sadler has heavily focused
on the future of maritime forces and issues facing the U.S.
Navy strategy.
Second, we have Meaghan Mobbs, as an experienced policy
leader. She is a graduate of West Point, holds a master's in
forensic psychology from George Washington, and a doctorate in
clinical psychology from Columbia.
She previously served as a Presidential appointee to the
U.S. Military Academy West Point board of advisors, and is
currently gubernatorial appointee to the Virginia Military
Institute Board of Visitors.
Next, we have Jeremy Hunt, currently serves as Chairman for
Veterans on Duty, an organization that advocates for strong
military and national security policies. Mr. Hunt is a graduate
of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and previously
served as an active-duty military intelligence officer where he
was deployed as part of a multinational mission to train the
Ukrainian Armed Forces.
He now serves in the U.S. Army in active Ready Reserve as
he completes his final year at Yale Law School. You have a
strong enough background you are going make it through there
unscathed. And, most importantly, last week, he welcomed his
second child to the world. Congratulations, Mr. Hunt.
Finally, Lieutenant General David Barno is a visiting
Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University
School of Advanced International Studies. General Barno
completed a 30-year active-duty Army career, served as an
infantry officer, Ranger, and paratrooper. General Barno
currently serves on the Secretary of Defense's Reserve Forces
Policy Board and is a member of the U.S. Army War College Board
of Visitors.
Again, thank you for all being here today. Pursuant to
Committee Rule 9(g) the witnesses will please stand and raise
their right hands.
Do you solemnly swear to affirm that the testimony that you
are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, so help you God?
[Witnesses are sworn.]
Mr. Grothman. Let the record show that the witnesses all
answered in the affirmative, right? Yes. Good.
OK. We appreciate you all being here today, again.
You can sit down. I appreciate you all being here, again,
today and look forward to your testimony. Let me remind the
witnesses that we have read your written statements and they
will appear in full in the record. We all should have read them
all.
Please limit your oral statements to as close to five
minutes as you can get. As a reminder, please press the button
on the microphone in front of you so that it is on and we can
all hear you. When you begin to speak the light in front of you
will turn green. After four minutes it will turn yellow. When
the red light comes on your five minutes are up and please wrap
up.
I recognize, first of all, Mr. Sadler, to begin your
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF BRENT SADLER
SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW
CENTER FOR NATIONAL DEFENSE
THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Mr. Sadler. Thank you, and good afternoon, Chairman
Grothman and Ranking Member Garcia, and Members of the House.
The root cause of why we are here today stems from the
corrosive impact recent policies are having on our all-
volunteer military.
While ostensibly noble, a growing cadre of DEI staffers
across the military backed by $114 million budget, a 33 percent
increase over last year, and several executive orders are
having a divisive impact.
As a 27-year Navy veteran, it is clear a course correction
is needed. To be totally clear, diversity has enabled
battlefield advantages like code-talker Navajo Marines of World
War II or female soldiers able to engage Afghan women for
intel.
Yes, the military appreciates diversity, but it is more
than balancing skin tones on a roster. Inclusion in the
military is everyone being held to the same standards and a
common desire for operational success. Inclusion without this
in mind, risk unit cohesion and camaraderie. Good measures of
effective military inclusion, not numbers of categories
present, of gender, sexuality, et cetera, and certainly not
excluding those who do not share popular political or social
views.
And equity--equity becomes problematic if actualized to
balance outcomes running contrary to a military meritocracy.
When paired with Marxist theories of critical race theory,
espousals of America is systematically racist or assigning
groups oppressor or oppressed roles as rationale for limiting
or curtailing a person's access to services or career options
based on immutable difference of characteristics is racist and
un-American.
By featuring on a military professional reading list
authors such as Ibram Kendi's ``How to Be an Anti-Racist''
discrimination is seemingly normalized. The embrace of such
thinking has led to a perception--perception--that the military
is no longer an egalitarian society where hard work and self-
improvement can get you far.
Such perceptions were furthered when racist tweets by a DOD
official came to light and suffered no apparent meaningful
repercussion. The real question is how the DOD hired someone
with such a problematic public background to be chief of
diversity, inclusion, and equity--the message to half of the
military and their children in DOD schools, you are valued
less.
All service members matter. But amidst the emotions of
2020's riots, anti-establishment protests, and a Presidential
election, too many lost sight of this, the damage done.
Military Family Advisory Network polls showed a 7.6 percent
drop from 2019 in veterans recommending family members join the
military. Confidence in the military has also hit new lows. Pew
Research, nine percent down; Gallup poll, five percent decline;
and finally, Reagan Institute's a 22 percent drop.
The perception today is of a military increasingly captured
by a political agenda, leading some to forego military service.
The nation is weaker for this.
To be clear, not all recruits or officer candidates began
their careers with the same aptitudes, often a function of
poorly performing schools or unhelpful family situations.
The military and Congress should find ways to get more
willing patriots from such conditions within standards for the
military and, for the most promising, extra academic training
so that they may be even more successful in the long term.
This nurturing comes with added cost and time for sure.
Until 2008, the Navy had a program called Boost that did much
the same. Perhaps a reimagined and expanded Boost program can
deliver on diversity inclusion based on rewarding hard work,
while not alienating segments of the military.
On top of this, the military needs help in getting access
to educate more people about what military service is. It is a
noble profession, and when a high school student gets to talk
with a Marine, sailor, airman, or soldier only three or four
years older than themselves and likely from the same town,
trust is highest.
But too often, parts of the country are devoid of that type
of exchange. This, too, must change. True, most in uniform go
about their daily routines and operations much as they always
have. That is not to say corrosive influences are not at play
as evidenced by several unfortunate incidents.
Should military members see their opportunities narrowing
and themselves being undervalued they will vote with their
feet. Retention is a lagging factor, and it is showing signs of
trouble.
Recruitment is a leading indicator. For the Army last year,
it was a historic failure; short 25 percent of 15,000 people,
with next year looking to be worse. It is already the worst
since the all-volunteer force came into being in 1973.
COVID and economics do not explain this. But it does
correlate with an added emphasis on DEI and increasing CRT-
informed training.
The problems are not caused by congressional oversight or
people asking tough questions. In fact, the surest way to
reverse course is demand transparency in all DEI-related
activities within DOD and doing so allows for needed
adjustments and rebuilding confidence.
The military is a meritocracy, or at least the closest to
one existing today, because the environment in which it
operates is unforgiving, where competency and unit cohesion
often determine survival. The military is of and serves all
Americans. Sadly, the military has not been served as well.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
Ms. Mobbs?
STATEMENT OF MEAGHAN MOBBS
SENIOR FELLOW
INDEPENDENT WOMEN'S FORUM
Ms. Mobbs. Chairman Grothman, Ranking Member Garcia, and
Members of the Committee, it is a privilege to be here today
both professionally and personally.
My name is Dr. Meaghan Mobbs, and I am the daughter of two
former Army officers. My mother was one of the first women to
go to Airborne School and deployed to Grenada. My father served
for over 30 years deployed, and was decorated for valor
numerous times, and was in the Pentagon on 9/11 when I was a
sophomore in high school.
It was their footsteps I followed when I chose to serve and
accept an appointment to West Point. I was the first in my
family to attend the academy and my little brother eventually
followed my footsteps and did the same.
My nuclear family has served in every major conflict from
Vietnam to the present day. I am now the mother to two
exceptional little girls and the aunt to two energetic nephews.
As it stands, and it pains me to say, I would not recommend
military service to them. Understandably, our military cannot
function as family business with children of service members
the predominant source of the force.
However, it was until recently a reliable pool of
candidates. That is changing as I am not alone in my
hesitation. Deficits in recruitment potential for military
families is just one facet of the broader crisis facing our
armed forces. Most concerningly, the desire in our youth to
serve is only nine percent. This is a grave national security
threat.
Just yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported on a poll
which demonstrated the priorities that helped define our
national character for generations are declining in importance.
One of the variables, patriotism, falling from 70 percent in
extreme importance in 1998 to just 38 percent today.
Relatedly, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents show
double digit declines in national pride compared with 2013.
Pride is an imperative human emotion, particularly pride in the
self. Feelings of pride reinforce positive social behaviors
like altruism and lead to adaptive behaviors like achievement.
Conversely, people who are deliberately shamed even over a
modest violation of social norms are at much greater risk for
depression and anxiety, and if they are repeatedly shamed, they
are less likely to take positive risk-taking behaviors that can
lead to success in adulthood.
While pride in self and pride in nation may not necessarily
be related, it is highly likely that both are contributing
factors in the decision-making process to join the armed
forces.
It is for this reason that curricula or instruction which
hyper focus negatively on immutable characteristics are
destructive, both to the self and to esprit de corps.
Moreover, a consistent centering of what divides us rather
than what unites us is particularly pernicious. This is not to
call into question the necessity of grappling with the
complexity of a historical past. It is the manner in which it
is currently being done in many of our educational settings
and, lamentably, in the Department of Defense and at our
service academies.
These programs do not build teams. They destroy them.
Moreover, there is a unique danger in telling those who are
called to fight our Nation's battles the very notion they are
expected to sacrifice and potentially die for is inherently
bad.
No good leader would say diversity is a bad thing.
Diversity of all types, to include those often not considered
such as cognitive diversity and diversity of experience, build
strong teams. The sole function of our military is to deter our
Nation's enemies and, if that fails, to fight and win our
Nation's war.
We are no longer in competition with China. We are in
conflict. A failure to recognize and reorient toward those
demands will be disastrous. This necessary reorientation will
require close examination of decades of multiple military
failures with little to no accountability and poor command
climate and culture, which is decimating our ranks.
Some of the most detrimental decisions have been the casual
disregard of data in favor of a political agenda. One such
example was the out of hand rejection of a 2015 study done by
the Marine Corps which found that gender integrated combat
formations did not move as quickly or shoot as effectively as
all-male formations.
At that time, many of the disparities were dismissed and
reframed as opportunities to train women more comprehensively
with a push toward equal standards. Neither the Marines nor the
Army followed through. To date across the services there are a
difference in physical standards for men and women. That is not
helpful for women, and it makes it more difficult for them to
earn trust and confidence of those they serve alongside.
Make no mistake, that is not to say that women cannot fight
or contribute. In fact, it is often when we recognize the
biological differences between men and women that we increase
lethality.
An example of that is a heroic and lauded efforts of the
cultural support teams in our most recent conflicts. Their
conceptualization was rooted in the recognition that women and
womanhood were unique and thereby would allow access for them
to places that men could not go.
It is the frequent Department of Defense denials of reality
and their unwillingness to confront hard truths which places
lethality at risk.
For example, President Biden signed an executive order in
2021 to embed diversity, equity, and inclusion in all Federal
agencies with the overarching goal of advancing equity for all.
There is no equity for combat and there should not be a
push for it in our society. Forced equality, which is equity by
definition, leads to a lack of competition. This is not leveled
playing fields for the positive. It flattens capability. The
military should and must be standards-based and a meritocracy.
The problem with recruitment and retention in our military
are long in the making and it will be long in the fixing.
Business as usual is no longer an option as we look to the
pacing threat of China. The world is an increasingly dangerous
place and for now warfare remains a predominantly human
endeavor.
It is Americans who fill our ranks and operate our weapon
systems and our current and future men and women need
legislators willing to hold the Department of Defense
accountable for its failings and to demand results.
There is a phrase often used the military, getting left of
bang. It means you have accurately observed pre-event
indicators for what is to come and acting practically to
prevent it. Being on the opposite end means being right of
bang. We are now right of bang and headed to a much louder one
if we fail to heed the alarm bells ringing.
I look forward to your questions and thank you.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
Mr. Hunt?
STATEMENT OF JEREMY HUNT
CHAIRMAN
VETERANS ON DUTY, INC.
Mr. Hunt. Good afternoon, Chairman Grothman, Ranking Member
Garcia, and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify today about the state of our military's
readiness.
I am Jeremy Hunt and I have the honor of serving as
Chairman of Veterans on Duty, which is a nonprofit policy
advocacy organization made up of veterans who are concerned
about the state of our military and the strength of our
national security.
Many of us have deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, and in my
case, Ukraine, and during my time on active duty as an
intelligence officer, I helped train the Ukrainian Armed Forces
for what was then a hypothetical scenario of Russia launching
an invasion against Ukraine.
Five years later, I watched footage of Yavoriv Training
Center in Lviv where I lived for many months become engulfed in
flames following a Russian attack. That footage reminded me,
yet again, that our adversaries abroad are more emboldened than
ever. And it is not just Russia. China continues its
multigenerational effort to supplant the United States as the
world's leading superpower.
The CCP to this day is building hypersonic missiles that
our radar systems can barely detect and, of course, threats
remain from barbaric regimes in North Korea and Iran.
In light of these rising threats, there is growing concern
that our United States' military simply isn't ready. We stand
amid a once in a generation military recruitment crisis. At the
end of FY 2022, the Army fell 15,000 soldiers short of its
recruiting goal, missing by 25 percent. Our military is facing
the worst recruitment challenge since the advent of the all-
volunteer force following the Vietnam War.
And apart from these manning shortfalls, other readiness
issues abound. Just last year the Navy reported $2 billion in
shipyard backlog for their service fleet. This report came
during the same year that the USS Connecticut, an indispensable
fast attack submarine, crashed into an underwater sea mount
entirely due to avoidable human error.
Avoidable accidents abound in the sky as well. The National
Commission on Military Aviation Safety found that from 2013 to
2020 our military lost 224 personnel and 186 aircraft worth
over $11.6 billion to avoidable aircraft accidents.
There are many factors that have led us to this dangerous
position. Global supply chain challenges have made it difficult
for the services to maintain their vehicles and equipment. Low
nationwide unemployment rates have created a challenging
environment for military recruitment and, of course, with
rising teen obesity rates data shows that only about 23 percent
of America's youth are even eligible to enlist.
These factors do matter and play an important role in this
recruitment crisis. However, these are factors beyond the
military's control. I would like to focus on a few things that
the military can control.
The Reagan Institute annually conducts a Trust in the
Military poll which analyzes the public's faith and confidence
in the military. It should be of concern that the survey found
an astonishing double digit decrease in the number of Americans
with strong confidence in our armed forces, and the Pew
Research Center had similar findings.
This politicization of our military can be best described
in terms of priorities and practices. That is, the things that
the Pentagon says are important--the priorities--and the things
that the Pentagon does--the practices.
When Secretary Austin was sworn into office, he rightly
identified China as a pacing threat. But he also identified and
started expressing an emphasis on policies atypical to the
military's core purpose.
He included a huge amount of emphasis on diversity, equity,
and inclusion, domestic extremism, and climate change. These
are priorities that are more appropriate to the domestic
political debates, and they just don't--and it is an odd fit
for an institution purposed for a violent clash of arms against
a tough and determined adversary. This has led to the
perception that the Pentagon serves a political party rather
than the American people as a whole.
As a matter of practices, the Pentagon has followed through
on its political agenda. In the wake of the Supreme Court's
Dobbs decision, Secretary Austin made an unprecedented
political announcement that the Department of Defense would pay
for service members and their families to travel to different
states to receive abortions and offer three weeks of paid
vacations for those seeking these abortions, shoving the
Department of Defense into one of the most polarizing political
issues of our time.
Further, recent Presidential administrations have ordered
the replacement of long-standing equal opportunity programs
with an entirely new DEI bureaucracy. The current program
subjects some service members to 11-week resident DEI training
classes, all this despite there being no measurable increase in
racist incidents that demonstrated a need for such a dramatic
increase in the number of DEI bureaucrats or such an extreme
training requirement.
As America watches the Chinese military grow in power and
the largest land war in Europe since the Second World War
unfold, we are given the impression that our military serves
other masters beyond our national defense.
The Pentagon cannot magically make American teens fit for
duty or eager to serve, nor can they reverse cultural
considerations beyond their control. But we can change the
recent policies that have left our military unfocused,
untrained, unmanned, and unprepared for combat.
Congress has an opportunity to take politics out of the
military and refocus the Department of Defense back to what it
was made to do, to deter, fight, and win our Nation's wars.
I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you very much.
Lieutenant General Barno?
STATEMENT OF GENERAL BARNO (RET.)
VISITING PROFESSOR OF STRATEGIC STUDIES
JOHNS HOPKINS, SCHOOL OF ADVANCED
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
General Barno. Chairman Grothman, Ranking Member Garcia,
thanks for inviting me to speak here today.
As we all have heard, the U.S. military is facing a
recruiting crisis in the year 2023 of unprecedented magnitude.
I served for 30 years of my life on active duty in the U.S.
Army and commanded U.S. forces at every level from lieutenant
to lieutenant general.
I served in combat three times, culminating in my 19 months
as the overall U.S. commander in Afghanistan during the early
days of the war and, yet, I have never seen a greater challenge
to the all-volunteer force than the one we see today.
This crisis has many complex causes, but so-called wokeism
in the military is not one of them. Let me be clear, there are
no data that support the argument that wokeism has precipitated
a decline in U.S. combat readiness nor is there any correlation
between wokeism and the current difficulty in attracting new
recruits.
However, in my view, the overheated and unsupported
rhetoric on this topic does have harmful consequences, which
exacerbates the recruiting crisis and undermines military
effectiveness in ways that are the exact opposite of what all
of us intend.
Since the draft ended in 1973, the U.S. military has had to
fill its ranks with volunteers at every level. Every military
mission since then has been conducted by high-quality
volunteers who have rightfully earned the esteem of the Nation.
Yet, today, that force is at risk. As you heard, the Army
missed its recruiting goals last year and the other services
barely met theirs. The current year's prospects for all appear
equally dim.
If the trends for the Army, alone, continues, service
officials have warned that the Army could shrink by over 30,000
soldiers between 2022 and the end of 2023, or nearly seven
percent of its active force.
If these trends don't change, the lack of qualified and
motivated volunteers will jeopardize the national security of
the United States by leaving our military too small to address
the challenges and threats of the years and decades ahead.
U.S. military recruiting today faces a crisis in both
eligibility, those who are qualified to serve, and in
propensity, those who want to serve. The percentage of young
Americans who meet the military's entrance standards has
hovered around 30 percent for more than a decade. But last year
that number suddenly dropped to an all-time low of 23 percent.
This is a shockingly low number that threatens the
viability of the all-volunteer force.
Equally disturbing is the other half of the equation, the
propensity or willingness, interest in serving. Before the
pandemic polls showed that only 13 percent of young Americans
said they would consider military service. Last year, that
number shrank further to a mere nine percent.
These figures are simply unsustainable for the volunteer
military to remain a robust high-quality force. Too few
recruits means a shrinking military at a time when the
strategic threats facing the Nation continue to multiply. The
services are developing some innovative ways to deal with this.
The Army has developed a pre-boot camp program that the
Navy has now copied. Other services are looking at that as
well. They are also examining ways to revisit some of the
medical conditions that are now so commonplace in our society
that have previously been disqualifications from military
service such as successful treatment for ADHD or depression as
a child. These need to be looked at carefully in terms of
increasing potential eligibility numbers.
Finally, propensity to serve--how to get more young
Americans to consider military service--is a tougher problem.
Although the all-volunteer force has seen great success it has
one tremendous Achilles' heel. It has created an ever-widening
gap between the U.S. military and the American people. Fewer
and fewer young Americans today are exposed to the U.S.
military.
As we have heard, the U.S. military has become increasingly
a family business. Today, more than 80 percent of the young
people who join the military have a family member in the
military. Between 25 and 30 percent have a parent in the
military.
Congress can help improve the propensity to serve by
extolling the virtues of service in uniform in the ways that
were commonplace throughout the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Repeatedly and publicly castigating the U.S. military as a
woke institution is both wrong and directly undercuts efforts
at military recruiting among swaths of young American men and
women.
It effectively discourages our young men and women from
serving in uniform at the very time when the services are
struggling with this challenge. Recruiting young Americans
demands the military find ways to attract more people who would
otherwise not consider military service. To do that, and retain
the very best of those, it has always emphasized equal
opportunity for all regardless of race, creed, or color.
Put unequivocally, military efforts to recognize that
diversity, equity, and inclusion within the force are both
valuable and essential. They have long been part of our force
structure. The military is a team of team. It is a remarkably
diverse force built on different people that make up the
strength of America. We cut away at that at our very peril.
In my first days at West Point, I got a class on race
relations in a military that was fraught with racial tensions,
with drug abuse, and indiscipline. The president at that time
was Richard Nixon and the Secretary of Defense was Melvin
Laird.
Neither were well known liberal progressives, but they
maintained this was an important program that even in my first
days at West Point I should start learning about, and it helped
me immensely as I went out to lead troops for the rest of my
career.
The successors of those programs exist out there today. We
cannot afford to undercut them entirely and we can't afford to
tell Americans who are thinking about serving that this
military is not up to their expectations.
We have the best and most powerful military in the world.
You heard that from our Chairman at the beginning here today.
We must sustain that by maintaining and growing programs to
expand the number of people who are interested in the military
and to make sure they understand it is a proud and honorable
place to serve.
Thank you.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Thank you much. I will call upon myself,
first of all, just to make a general statement.
I, personally, believe--I am glad we have gone over 70
years without having a war with China and I look forward to
another 70 years, A. And, B, I recently ran into an employee
back in my district of a manufacturing firm and she was a
little bit sad because her company--this is in the private
sector, you know, just a manufacturing firm--had gone from a
very conservative company to one in which the employees had to
put up with this woke training stuff and she regretfully said
she might have to look for another job, and I thought that was
too bad, but I thought if that is what is going on in private,
you know, who knows in an area like the military what this woke
training does.
Now, a couple a couple of questions. First of all, we will
start with Mr. Hunt.
As far as physical requirements, are the physical
requirements for the military today any different than, say,
what they were 30 years ago?
Mr. Hunt. Thank you for that question, Chairman.
The physical requirements have changed, as we have seen in
a lot of the different--in the new kind of research that is
coming out now in terms of the standards that are allowing
people to come in the military.
I would say that a lot of those types of issues are kind of
room for more research and I would hope that this body would
continue to ask those types of questions.
Mr. Grothman. OK. So, in other words, our military is not
quite as physically strong today as they were 30 years ago--
your average soldier or sailor?
Mr. Hunt. No, sir.
Mr. Grothman. Oh, wow. That is concerning.
How about mental problems? There was a time where I think
mental problems would kind of disqualify someone from the
military. Is there a change in the way we deal with mental
problems today compared to, say, what we were dealing with 40
years ago?
Mr. Hunt. There have been some changes in that regard as
well, Chairman.
Mr. Grothman. Could you elaborate on it a little bit?
Mr. Hunt. Well, I will just say the organization I am a
part of, Veterans on Duty, a lot of our research has been done
with looking at how we can make sure our military is ready. We
have not done a variety of research into that particular
question of mental aptitude and that kind of question. But we
can get back to you with----
Mr. Grothman. I think there was a time where if you were
taking certain medications you couldn't get in the military. Is
that still true?
Mr. Hunt. Yes, sir.
Mr. Grothman. OK. More or less, or has it changed at all?
Mr. Hunt. I would not be the best person to give you the
answer to that.
Mr. Grothman. Either one of the other--any of the other
three know have we changed the--yes, Mr. Sadler?
Mr. Sadler. So, with regards to certain specialties and
ones that I am more familiar with in the nuclear submarine
community and the ballistic missile program there are stringent
medical as well as psychological requirements that are in
prescreening and continually through the career. That has
remained unchanging at least in the last 30 years.
Now, outside of that, inside my foreign area officer
experience, there is a very wide spectrum of differences based
on location and the stressors that you might be on.
And so, in that regards it is not uniform and it is--does
change from time to time based on what the medical community--
the military medical community believes is important for that
area for that operation.
And so, you can't paint with one brush for all DOD or even
one service, and it does change. Some of that there is some
things to look at more closely.
Mr. Grothman. OK. So, are things getting tightened up or
are we loosening the standards?
Mr. Sadler. What troubles me most when I hear from the
military medicine community is that there is a tendency to get
distracted from metrics or issues that are not medically
focused and, again, this comes back to the influences of DEI
type policies and that is, in my mind, a distraction from the
provision of traumatic care for soldiers, airmen, and sailors
that need, you know, help when they have an injury in either
the day-to-day operations or in combat.
Mr. Grothman. In other words, is what they are doing
affected by the person they are dealing with?
Mr. Sadler. There is some indication that is starting to
become a mentality or thinking that is overtaking their
approach to medicine.
Mr. Grothman. What would be the reason, Mr. Hunt, why we
changed the physical requirements?
Mr. Hunt. That particular question I would ask many of the
leaders right now in our Department of Defense of what is their
criteria. I think a lot of times it is unclear, and I think
that is part of the problem that this body should know exactly
what that criteria is.
Mr. Grothman. Yes. I have been told by people in the
military academies that sometimes they change the physical
requirements with regard to gender or what have you. Is that
true?
Mr. Hunt. I think you would have to ask the Department of
Defense exactly what is going on because, quite frankly----
Mr. Grothman. I see Ms. Mobbs kind of says that. Is it
Mobes, Mobbs? I don't even know.
Ms. Mobbs. Mobbs, sir.
Mr. Grothman. Mobbs. OK.
Ms. Mobbs. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. They have changed
the physical fitness standards. So, when we had the army
physical fitness test, which was the APFT, we switched to what
was then called the Army Combat Fitness Test and that was
designed to transform the Army fitness culture and improve
readiness for ground combat.
Many of the events within the Army combat fitness test were
specifically expected to map onto combat related things like
the sled carry, the shuttle run, amongst other things. I think
the broader question is that when we adopted the Army Combat
Fitness Test, we did not necessarily look holistically at what
kind of an overhaul of fitness culture in the military looked
alike.
And so, to that point, we can't just look at a single
physical fitness test as a measure of readiness within our
armed forces. We must be better about addressing kind of all
pillars of fitness to include things like sleep, nutrition,
cognitive, psychological, to your point, Mr. Chairman, because
that is how we are going to create the most lethal fighting
force.
Mr. Grothman. How about when we promote people? Does any of
this diversity stuff get in the way there?
Ms. Mobbs. So, in terms of if you are talking about
specifically physical fitness, so those are used as indicators
on report cards, if you will, for NCOs, junior soldiers,
officers. That is the case. So, they are utilized in that
capacity.
Mr. Grothman. OK. So, to a degree is it ever possible that
somebody would be promoted or not promoted on the margins based
on diversity concerns?
Mr. Sadler wants to speak.
Mr. Sadler. Yes, I can weigh in a little bit on that
concern and that is, if the emphasis on diversity equates with
a quota or some ratio there is an unspoken or there can be an
unspoken pressure to actually try to tip the scales in one way
or the other, and that is a perception. That is something that
is very real, and I would say that to say that it doesn't exist
would not--would be a falsehood.
Mr. Grothman. OK. This woke stuff--when I talk to people
who work for big corporations, and I am talking of military
people, they all have a low opinion of it. How much are we
spending as far as you are concerned with these diversity type
bureaucrats? I know we need--you know, there is so many things
we need more of in the military to preserve our country. I
wonder how much we are spending on these people.
Mr. Hunt. Mr. Chairman, right now the numbers are $114
million on DEI programs. In some cases, we are paying these DEI
bureaucrats over $200,000 a year which is----
Mr. Grothman. $200,000 for a diversity person?
Mr. Hunt [continuing]. Tiple the mean of the household
income in the United States--the average household income. So,
this is a major problem that we are seeing where we are
investing all of this money without any data that reflects, A,
if it actually works, which we know it doesn't, and, B,
whether--what the point is or whether there was any type of
underlying data that would necessitate such dramatic increases
in the funding of these programs.
Mr. Grothman. I am sure it lowers morale to put up with
this stuff. I mean, you like to look up to your commanding
officer. You don't like to think that they are a joke.
But in any event, I have used up my time. So, I suppose I
will go on to Mr. Garcia.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
A couple of comments and some questions. Let me just,
first, just make a couple of notes. I think that there is a lot
of conversations and comments about diversity and inclusion
programs and diversity in the military, and I think it is
important to remember that we have been diversifying our
military for decades and so this has been a priority of the
United States to have a more inclusive military, a more
inclusive force, since the 1960's and 1970's.
And so, this isn't a new thing. This isn't, like, this has
just started happening. This has been a critical mission of the
U.S. and our military is stronger today because of the focus on
inclusion and diversity. And so, I just want to make that very
clear. I think it is important to note for the record.
Our military changing and becoming more inclusive has been
a very positive thing. Our military reflects the American
people. As American people become more diverse and more focused
on these issues, so should our institutions and, certainly, our
military.
The U.S., of course, has a long history of implementing
changes to the military that affect its engagement with a
variety of groups. For example, obviously, the integration of
women into the military has been critical. The desegregation
that happened across our forces have been critical, and the DOD
today reports that our 1.3 million active-duty personnel has,
of course, greater racial, ethnic, and other--and gender
diversity than we have had in the past and from decades in the
past.
And so, if you look at just our current force today, 17
percent of our active-duty members are female, 31 percent of
our active-duty members identify with a racial minority, and 85
percent of our military officers have a BA or an advanced
degree. That is actually higher than any time, even if you look
at the last decade.
And so, our military continues to be more reflective of the
American people. It continues to get more educated. It
continues to include more people. So, if that is a reflection
or an outcome of focusing more on diversity and focusing more
on inclusion, then I welcome that and I think that is actually
positive development as our military continues to grow.
And I wanted to ask General Barno, because you mentioned
some of this in your opening comments, how does a educated,
racially diverse and gender diverse military actually make us
stronger as a military?
General Barno. I think one of the most important things to
recognize, I think everyone on the panel would agree, is that
military leadership has to build cohesive teams, that that is a
leadership function. It may be the most important thing that
leaders do is put together cohesive teams.
The United States has an immense advantage over our
adversaries in that we are a very diverse culture. We, since
our history began, have been comprised of people from all
ethnic groups, all races, all creeds, all colors, men and
women.
If you look to the Chinese military and look at the Russian
military, you don't see that. They are going to operate at that
permanent disadvantage. Our ability to knit teams together that
can function well no matter what their educational background,
no matter what their race, their religious beliefs are, or
their gender that is an incredible advantage the United States
has always brought to the battlefield out there. That is going
to make us out-think and out-innovate the enemy in any future
conflict.
And so, building that cohesion in peacetime and recognizing
that there is a way to make these differences into strengths is
always something the military has tried to do.
And I would just comment on, briefly, maybe on the
Chairman's points. I think we actually have higher standards
today in a lot of areas than we had when I came in the Army. We
certainly have a higher physical fitness standard.
The new Army combat fitness test is a very, very tough test
for men and women both. It is much tougher than what it
replaced, and we have also moved in the selection system to
doing blind selections, which is far more reflective of equity.
Without knowing--you don't know if you are seeing the file--the
promotion file of a woman or a man, what they look like. And
so, we have actually taken a lot of steps in the last few
years----
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, sir, and I completely--I completely
agree with that testimony and I thank you for, you know,
reinforcing that.
I also want to just note something right now. So today, the
GAO released a report on active-duty recruitment and retention
challenges and I ask for unanimous consent to put this report
in the record. As you can see from the poster behind me, the
GAO identifies a number of real factors that affect military
recruitment and retention such as commercial sector employment
opportunities, medical qualifications, dependent care, and
family planning.
Obviously, if we support our men and women in uniform
rather than actually trying to score political points, we might
actually make some progress on this issue.
These are--there are real challenges we should be focused
on, not necessarily the ones that are being brought up today at
this hearing.
General Barno, broadly speaking, what actions can the
military take to effectively compete for the best and the
brightest?
General Barno. I think the military has got to get out
among the American people and become better known than it is
today. It is very geographically centered where the bases are
in the country. It is very family oriented in terms of
militaries being a family business. My father, all three of his
brothers, myself, my three brothers, my two children all served
in the U.S. military. We can't sustain the AVF on that model.
So, we have to get out and see the American people. They have
to see what a great military this is.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, sir. And I think just to close, you
know, it is interesting we have a more diverse military today.
We have more women in the military, of course more people of
color in the military. We have a more educated military. Yet,
somehow, we are worse off today than we were before. So, I
don't understand that. I don't agree with that. I want to thank
you all for your testimony.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
We will go on to Mr. Sessions.
Mr. Sessions. Chairman, thank you very much.
It seems like we have gotten off into equity and diversity
and all these other matters. I would like to, if I can, go a
little bit higher and go to the challenges of politically
driven agendas, because I think politically driven agendas is
more to the point rather than whether we are talking about who
but what a political agenda is.
I have two questions. I will just throw it open for you,
No. 1, to talk about COVID. Why do I talk about COVID? Because
my nephew, who could not wait to get into West Point and served
United States Army for five years, literally was summarily
dismissed from the Army as a United States Captain at the end
of his five years because he would not submit himself to the
knowledge that 30-year-old men did not do as well in the COVID
experience, and the pandemic was over long before he ever had
to make any decision about that. And they dismissed him. They
told him his career was done. Thank you very much. Please get
out.
Anybody have a comment about that politically driven agenda
placed on the military?
Ms. Mobbs. I think in general, sir, we have to be data
driven in our armed forces in the Department of Defense, and I
think what you just spoke to reflects moving away from data
driven science.
What we know is that natural immunity was 2.8 times better
in preventing hospitalizations and, in particular, this wasn't
a risk for young people and, in particular, the vaccines for
males that are young, aged 16 to 29, had a pernicious risk,
potentially, of heart myocarditis and other associated risks.
Mr. Sessions. That is the way he looked at it.
General Barno. My dad did. If you come in the military, and
we all have served there, the number of shots you get for all
kinds of things from yellow fever to diphtheria to, you know,
all variety of things--anthrax, in my case, at one point in
time--is part and parcel of being in the military.
COVID was something brand new. We didn't have a lot of
experience in that. We had over 1.1 million Americans die of
that and, I think, depending on when the decision was made, the
military made a wise decision to try and vaccinate its people
so they didn't have more incidents like USS Theodore Roosevelt
having most of its crew gets sick with COVID and have to not be
available for deployment.
So, again, I would want to be looking back humble about
what we knew when in that environment, and I am not a medical
professional, but I can understand the logic of the decisions
that were made.
Mr. Sessions. Well, perhaps we can, if we were talking
about early on that might ring true but not later as we gained
more information and learned that the initial things that we
learned, in fact, were falsehoods.
I would like to move then to the political agenda of the
transgender recruiting. If someone can talk with me about that
it. I understand that they are actively recruited.
Tell me what the process for bringing them in, going
through bootcamp, and then what that process is including them
going through that period of time with this transition.
Anybody?
[No response.]
Mr. Sessions. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, please let the record reflect that we are--
the people that we have today to offer testimony do not offer
any insight as to the trend--gender recruiting, the agenda, the
amount of time, and that process, as well as the period of time
that these individuals might be unable to serve the United
States military, and what requirements would be placed upon
them.
So I would like to go next to a politically driven agenda,
and that is what I believe is an overall belief and feeling
about trying to encourage people to become a different person
than what we might need as a warfighter, just the agenda that
may be placed upon them, a discussion that may be placed upon
them as--but what we need is our military to be warfighters.
Does anyone have an idea about this?
Mr. Hunt?
Mr. Hunt. Absolutely, Congressman. I appreciate the
question. It is incredibly important, especially as we look at
our threats abroad and what is going on with our adversaries--
China, Russia, Iran, North Korea--that our military is focused
on developing and training and developing warfighters.
And so, that is why many of us here are concerned about the
seeming shift away from the military's core mission in kind of
a direction to more political ideas like climate change, the
entire robust bureaucracy of DEI that has just exploded in this
most recent Presidential administration, and this kind of a
distraction from the most important task at hand, which is
deterring, fighting, and winning our Nation's wars.
Mr. Sessions. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
Mr. Goldman. Chairman, could I have a point of order?
Could I just ask the gentleman from Texas--were you citing
a particular document related to the impact of COVID?
Mr. Grothman. May I ask what the point of order is first?
Mr. Goldman. Just--if he could just submit that document to
the record--for the record so we could all see it.
Mr. Grothman. Yes, what is the point of order?
Mr. Goldman. The question is whether he could submit a
document that he is citing from to the record.
Mr. Grothman. Yes. That is not a point of order, though.
Mr. Sessions. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Grothman. Yes.
Mr. Sessions. I will be very pleased to engage the
gentleman. I was not citing anyone. I spoke about the very
public information that the President was requiring COVID to be
given on an order from the United States military by the
Commander in Chief, and I felt like in the beginning, perhaps,
that could have sounded true, but as we learned more it
diminished and my question was about the diminish--as time
moved the diminishment of the need for this and yet they
continued their policies.
I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Grothman. OK. That is enough.
Now, first of all, I would like to ask unanimous consent to
enter into the record two documents pertaining to today's
hearing: GAO report released today titled entitled, ``DOD
active-duty recruitment and retention challenges,'' and a
letter signed by myself and other Members--Majority Members of
the Committee--from September 22, 2021, asking for documents
and communications from the White House on the firing of 18
Trump-appointed military service academy board members.
Mr. Grothman. Let the record reflect that the White House
did not respond to our inquiry.
Now we will go on to Mr. Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Army fell short of its recruitment goals by 15,000 last
year. Why has it become more difficult to recruit people into
the military?
Here is one theory. Potential recruits are not afraid of
going woke. They are afraid of going broke. Pay and benefits
are so low that the RAND Corporation estimates that more than a
quarter, 26 percent, of our military service members are food
insecure, and 14 percent actually use food assistance programs,
like food banks, to meet their family needs.
General Barno, how can our military improve the lives of
our most junior service members so they don't have to struggle
for basic necessities for their families like groceries?
General Barno. I think the military has done well, over the
last 20 years, is increasing the amount of compensation that
military members get. But that applies least of all to the most
junior members of the force. They come in and are still making
a very, very minimal amount of wages.
I can recall actually qualifying for food stamps myself
when I was a first lieutenant with my wife and a new baby at
one point in time. So, we fixed some of those problems over the
years, but we still have a problem for our force that is in the
E-1 to E-4 category, the most junior enlisted, and we ought to
devote some more attention to making sure that they have a
tolerable standard of living, especially if they are married
and they, perhaps, have dependents.
Mr. Raskin. Well, I appreciate that. The Blue Star families
which I have been in touch with suggests this is a real
problem, not an illusory problem. It would be great if we
actually had the Department of Defense here to speak to this
question of what we are doing to compensate the newly recruited
members of the armed forces.
Ms. Mobbs, in your testimony you cite a recent survey which
found that 30 percent of Americans ages 16 to 24 say that the
possibility of sexual assault, rape, or sexual harassment is
one of the main reasons that they would not consider joining
the military, and I would like to submit for the record an
article in the Military Times that has come out since then
titled ``The military's sexual assault problem is only getting
worse.''
Will you elaborate on this point? To what extent do you
think this is actually deterring women and men from going into
the military?
Ms. Mobbs. Thank you, Congressman. I appreciate the
question. I can't speak directly to the totality of the impact
on preventing them from serving. I would say that it is clear
that our focus on sexual harassment, sexual prevention within
the military, those programs have not been as effective as they
should have been over the years, which does decline trust in
teams, and I would posit that focusing on improving programs
like that are a far better use of resources than where some
things are currently placed.
Mr. Raskin. Well, I appreciate that. But a lot of people
would say those are precisely the programs that are promoting
wokeism. To talk about sexual harassment or sexual assault is
actually to try to impose a bar of political correctness, to
politicize the Army, to engage in social engineering. What is
your response to that?
Ms. Mobbs. I would say that is not the case at all. I think
that the military's ultimate function is to build the strongest
teams possible and that is what its function should be and that
it is regardless of identity, of gender, of race, which is why
I do think some of these programs are particularly pernicious
when it comes to the DEI overarching frame, which looks at
individual characteristics versus building teams broadly.
But to your point, Congressman, I do not think that
focusing on sexual harassment or assault prevention is a bad
thing. I think it is absolutely critical to build teams that
have trust.
Mr. Raskin. Well, I appreciate that, and I would just like
to remark, as the Ranking Member did, that, you know, it has
been a historical struggle to desegregate the Army, to let
African Americans into the Army, to let women into the Army, to
let gay people serve in the Army publicly, and at every point
there was a complaint that, oh, this is woke or this is
politically correct or this is social engineering or what have
you.
In fact, it is the process of democratization and making
the Army look like the rest of society and allowing everybody
to serve.
Lieutenant General Barno, are there any studies which
document the rather extraordinary claim being bandied about
today that fear of wokeism, or political correctness or what
have you, is actually depressing recruitment to the military?
General Barno. I am not aware of any studies that actually
have any factual data that support that assertion. I also know
that at least two service chiefs--the Commandant of the Marine
Corps, General Berger; and the Chief of Staff at the Air Force,
General C.Q. Brown--have both said that, you know, wokeism is
not--there is no such thing. It is not affecting military
readiness. They have seen--they see no evidence that this is a
problem inside their two services, and I think that applies in
the recruiting domain as well. But no, in terms of actual
evidence, I have not seen that.
Mr. Raskin. All right. Well, I want to thank all of the
witnesses for their testimony and for their service.
And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
On to Mr. Biggs.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our
witnesses for being here today.
The question for each of you, and I hope you recognize that
it is just a real short question, so I will start with you,
General.
Who is the biggest geostrategic adversary of the United
States today?
General Barno. I would say, as the National Defense
Strategy says, China.
Mr. Biggs. Mr. Hunt?
Mr. Hunt. China, sir.
Mr. Biggs. Ms. Mobbs?
Ms. Mobbs. China.
Mr. Biggs. Mr. Sadler?
Mr. Sadler. China.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you. So, I think maybe you might be
surprised to know that our Commander in Chief said in June
2021, that global warming is our greatest threat. So, it makes
one wonder what the priorities of the military are.
So, I am thinking of China with the vax mandate that we
placed on our men and women in the military--8,400 active-duty
left; 40,000 National Guardsmen left; 22,000 Reservists also
left the service.
Do you know whether China placed the same kind of
constraints on their military, Mr. Sadler?
Mr. Sadler. Their constraints are different as a communist
society. So, if you don't follow the diktat of the Communist
Party, you are politically----
Mr. Biggs. Did they--do they drum you out of the service if
you didn't--well, yes, they would. They would drum you out.
Mr. Sadler. They would drum you out for political reasons,
yes.
Mr. Biggs. How about teaching CRT in their military
academies?
Mr. Sadler. I think they probably do as it is a neo-Marxist
and a Marxist ideology.
Mr. Biggs. Right. DOD prioritizing climate literacy.
Mr. Hunt, do they do that in China?
Mr. Hunt. I have seen no evidence to suggest that they are
highlighting climate readiness.
Mr. Biggs. How about environmental justice in China?
Mr. Hunt. Not that I am aware of.
Mr. Biggs. How about any kind of climate goals in China?
Mr. Hunt. Not to my knowledge, Congressman.
Mr. Biggs. Ms. Mobbs, do you think China requires its
Federal defense contractors to comply with ESG and DEI
requirements as ours does?
Ms. Mobbs. Not to my awareness, no.
Mr. Biggs. One thing that was said is that there has been
no real study on this and that individual--a couple of
individuals were cited by the General that nothing on wokeness
really has an impact on--maybe you were limiting it to
recruiting. I may be wrong. I don't want to expand--I don't
want to say more than you were. So, I think maybe you were
limiting it to recruitment. Am I right on that?
General Barno. No, actually the two service chiefs said
that they--as I recollect--this is fairly recent--did not see
that wokeism was having any effect on the readiness of their
service. They did not see that inside the service.
Mr. Biggs. I see. I see. In May 2021, Deputy Secretary of
Defense Kathleen Hicks said, quote, ``Every dollar we spend
addressing the effect of climate change is a dollar that we are
not putting toward other priorities like meeting the challenge
posed by China and modernizing our forces,'' close quote.
Additionally, we spent $87 million just on the Department
of Defense Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity. We have
also seen Air Force and the Navy paying DEI managers $180,000 a
year. The person that was in charge of the DEI office of DOD at
the Pentagon had to be let go for racist statements.
This type of effort, whether it is climate change, whether
it is gender equity, whether it is DEI, whether it is ESG
mandates, seem to be diverting from military readiness and
certainly might have an impact on whether individuals want to
join the military.
Ms. Mobbs, your comments, please.
Ms. Mobbs. So, I think anytime that dollars are pulled away
from doing operational or tactical training is problematic,
broadly speaking. I do think to your point, Congressman, that
that level of funding directed specifically to that program is
also direct evidence of implementation of a broader agenda
regarding diversity, equity, inclusion, that is, in fact,
divorced from the original diversity inclusion that was spoken
to by the Ranking Member.
That is a drastic shift of what previously was acknowledged
as being diversity and inclusion efforts that supported
bringing in, kind of, more women or things like--but were not
necessarily rooted in the critical race theory ideology that
DEI is currently.
Mr. Biggs. That we are teaching at our military academies.
With that I yield back.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
Mr. Lynch?
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the Ranking Member
for holding this hearing. I think it is very important. I had
the privilege of chairing this National Security Subcommittee
for the past two Congresses during which time we examined
several critical issues affecting military recruitment and
retention, including multiple CODELs by multiple Members here
on this Committee to Fort Hood, Texas.
Fort Hood has historically struggled with a crisis of
homicides, suicides, and sexual assaults among troops who are
stationed there with 11 homicides and over 50 suicides in the
last five years and widespread reports of sexual assault.
Importantly, in 2020, we initiated an extensive oversight
investigation following reports of, again, sexual harassment
and sexual assault at Fort Hood, an Army installation that has
witnessed nearly 30 service member deaths in one year--one
single year--including Army Specialist Vanessa Guillen and my
constituent, Army Sergeant Elder Fernandes, from the city of
Brockton in my district.
Our investigation was followed by the removal and
suspension of various members of senior leadership at Fort
Hood. Just last year, we conducted robust oversight surrounding
the management of the JROTC program, Junior Reserve Officer
Training Corps.
This program is instrumental in developing our young people
who may be inspired to embark on a life dedicated to military
or civilian public service. Regrettably, our investigation
found serious gaps in the processes undertaken by DOD and the
military services to address allegations of sexual misconduct
made against JROTC instructors.
General Barno, would you further discuss the impact of
these incidences of sexual assault and other sexual misconduct
on recruitment and retention efforts?
General Barno. I believe there are several surveys out
there. I have seen some of them that suggested one of the major
deterrents for young Americans signing on to join the U.S.
military is a belief that they will be at risk, that they could
be male or female sexually assaulted or sexually harassed
during their time in uniform and even beyond that, that they
have a high chance of becoming injured or traumatically
distressed by their time in service.
And so, this is a huge perception out there and as several
of the Members have noted, this has not gotten a great deal
better in recent years, especially the issues of military
sexual assault.
So, I think it is an area where the services need to double
down on what they are doing and find out what is causing this.
But, again, as with Fort Hood, the leadership aspect of this is
a critical component--getting the leadership right.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Lieutenant General, and thank you as
well for your service.
As a matter of fact, supporting your testimony, according
to the latest military propensity update released by the
Department of Defense, 30 percent of DOD youth poll
participants indicated that, quote, ``The possibility of sexual
harassment and assault is the main reason why they would not
consider joining the military.''
General Barno, the National Defense Authorization Act, that
was enacted by Congress last year and signed by President
Biden, included several military justice reforms designed to
combat sexual assault and harassment in the military.
Could you discuss the importance of these reforms to
establish a culture within our military that alleviates some of
the enlistment concerns expressed by our young people who
aspire to serve in the military?
General Barno. This is going to take time for this change
to take hold and for it to be publicized among young citizens
that are thinking about service.
But it essentially takes, after many years of studying this
and evaluating this and initially a lot of opposition from the
military, there has been removed from the military chain of
command oversight for the investigation and prosecution of
felony-level cases such as sexual assault or other felonies,
murders, et cetera. So, the commanders themselves are no longer
the direct investigators and ultimately the judicial
authorities for that.
That is a huge sea change inside the military. We haven't
seen anything like this in my lifetime, and I think it is going
to take hold and eventually provide some additional credibility
for prosecution of people that are suspected of these offenses.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you.
And last, General Barno, would you agree that it is vital
for us to demonstrate to those eager to serve our country in
uniform and their families--especially the families--that we do
not take the health and safety of our service members lightly?
General Barno. No, I think that is critical. You know,
individual young men and women don't make these decisions to
join by themselves. They rely upon the advice from their family
members, their teachers, their coaches, and if they--those
older adults in the room don't perceive the military as safe
for these people, they will never recommend they join.
Mr. Lynch. Right. Thank you, General. I thank all the
witnesses. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired, and I yield back.
Mr. Grothman. Thanks much.
Mr. Fallon?
Mr. Fallon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all the
witnesses for coming today.
General Barno, do you think the Ukrainian Armed Forces
right now are currently conducting sensitivity training?
General Barno. I have no knowledge of that, but I would be
surprised.
Mr. Fallon. Yes, and probably not concerned about pronouns
either. Maybe more concerned about the 100,000 casualties they
have suffered at the hands of the Russian aggressor, probably
more focused on the 20,000-plus civilians that have been
indiscriminately murdered by the Russian regime.
And, listen, the military is overburdened. You all know it.
We know it. They know it, and, you know, wasting time on
valuable, quote/unquote, ``training'' like sensitivity
training, diversity, equity inclusion, I am far more
concerned--not concerned about diversity. I am far more
concerned about the word talent because when you seek out
talent you will get the diversity. We are a very diverse
nation.
And as a conservative, we understand that success comes in
all shapes, sizes, and shades. I was in the military 30 years
ago, and the first thing they did when you get into training--
when you finish your training, and you go on active duty--is
they talked about the isms and there was zero tolerance for it
because this is about culture. There was no room for racism or
sexism or nepotism and it was zero tolerance. You can get
kicked out.
So, you build a culture over decades and now we see that a
lot on the left, in particular, in this Administration, want
the military to fight their political wars instead of preparing
for an actual real hot fighting war. We had--I am on the Armed
Services Committee--we had the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman
sitting in the witness chair and saying that he wanted to
understand White rage, and he is White. That is a political
statement.
General Barno, do you think that there is a serious problem
in today's military with political extremism?
General Barno. I think political extremism exists in
military as it does in society, and I know that it is not
tolerated in the military.
Mr. Fallon. Sir, but do you think it is a serious problem?
General Barno. It is a very serious problem with any
individuals that serve in uniform that believe in those
beliefs.
Mr. Fallon. I think there is--one is one too many, but it
is clearly not a serious problem because after much pulling of
teeth and gnashing, we got some answers that in 2020--do you
have any idea how many Army active-duty or Guard or Reservists
were separated for military or political extremism?
General Barno. No, I do not.
Mr. Fallon. It was nine--out of 1.1 million. The Marine
Corps out of 222,000 Active and Reserve, it was four. I don't
believe that is a serious problem.
We had the Secretary of Defense stand down the military in
a staggered fashion and probably burned at least $230 million
on training to remove--there were nine, four. I mean, there are
a couple of dozen. I think that was a terrible waste of
taxpayer money.
We can't meet our recruiting goals and when you start
seeing 20,000--my contacts in the Army are saying that we are
going to miss our mark by 20,000 or 30,000 this year. I hope
that is not the case.
But you keep doing that year over year, you are not going
to have a military. We lose the military, and we are not lethal
and we can't deter and we can't project power, we are going to
lose this country. It is a massive problem, and when you look
at--they do these pulse surveys--that when you combined
potential recruits' concerns for wokeism, the way they handled
COVID and other recent events, 21 percent didn't even want to
serve in the military.
We only have 23 percent of the Americans that can serve.
Nine percent are interested in serving and less than one
percent do serve. So, I am very concerned about the direction.
I don't want my military to be--I don't want Democratic
generals and I don't want Republican generals. Damn it, I want
American generals. I don't want to know your politics. We have
some that serve like that, and then we have others that are
serving political masters and wearing their ideology on their
sleeve and then shoving it down the American people's throats.
We do not want that. That is the one thing that unites us,
is our military. And I don't want this Administration to deter
that very narrow pool to service, because if you grow up not
loving this country and believing it is worth fighting for, you
are not going to serve. And there is too many people in the
political arena that are doing just that.
They are deterring and they are teaching young people,
particularly at the universities, that America on balance is a
net negative for the world. Always has been, always will be.
Unless we follow some socialist Marxist path.
I want to deter North Korea. I want to deter Venezuela. I
want to deter Iran, and I especially want to deter and detour
Russia and China.
And thank all the witnesses. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Grothman. Mr. Goldman?
Mr. Goldman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of our
witnesses for your service.
My colleague from Texas just mentioned Ukraine's military
preparedness in fighting Russian aggression.
General Barno, I would like to know from your vast
experience in the military how you believe that the Ukraine
military, that is bravely fighting for democracy against
Russian aggression, feels when politicians on the far-right
express support for Vladimir Putin over Ukraine.
General Barno. I don't think I can answer that question
since I am not part of that force. But I do understand that
they model themselves in many ways about--on the U.S. military,
that they have been trained, as one of my colleagues here has
trained Ukrainians in the past, by American military forces and
the American military is the model for the most aspiring armies
in the world and the Ukrainians are certainly part of that.
So, I think they admire this force that we are so concerned
about here in ways that, perhaps, is greater than some
Americans do, as we look at it today.
Mr. Goldman. Mr. Hunt, please define the term woke.
Mr. Hunt. Congressman, I describe it as a loose collection
of progressive political ideas that are constantly thrust upon
our institutions in the United States.
Mr. Goldman. What progressive ideals? What do you mean
thrust upon our institutions?
Mr. Hunt. So, thrust upon our institution. So, Secretary
Austin making an unprecedented statement after a Supreme Court
decision, having the military weigh in on the most polarizing
political issue of our time about abortion.
I would say at my old--at my alma mater, West Point,
getting a lecture on Whiteness. When I was there, we weren't
getting lectures like that. I don't understand why that is now
being a part of the curriculum there.
We have--at the Air Force Academy there are now cadet DEI
officials walking around writing up their fellow classmates
and, of course, we have the Air Force Academy professor who
proudly teaches critical race theory and wrote about it in a
very public op-ed in the Washington Post.
So, I think it is fair to say that all these are very kind
of political in nature, very--these are ideas that we just--we
want our military to be apolitical. We don't want a Democrat
military or Republican military. We want an apolitical military
focused on their mission to deter, fight, and win our Nation's
wars.
Mr. Goldman. That is a long definition, but thank you.
The other the other thing that I think is getting lost
here, and I don't think anyone disagrees with you that we would
like to have a military that is apolitical and prepared.
General Barno, the question I have for you is, describe for
us the benefits of having a diverse military.
General Barno. As I mentioned earlier, one of the reasons
the U.S. military is the envy of other militaries in the world
is because of the incredible teams of diverse individuals that
we have.
If I go to any other major military they are almost all
homogeneous in terms of their racial background, their ethnic
background. Few have as many women as we have in the force. So,
we bring a lot to the table in terms of thinking around all
aspects of a problem, being able to harness that energy and get
great synergy about having all those different kinds of people
that work together as teams in our military.
That is what every military would like to do, and we can
bring in a lot of different thinkers with different backgrounds
and experiences that, again, if you are a Russian or you are
a--or even a Ukrainian for that matter, certainly a Chinese,
you don't have that wealth of diversity to draw upon.
Mr. Goldman. Mr. Sadler, you mentioned in your opening
statement the benefits of the Navajo code talkers, and I
believe you also referenced the benefits of having women in the
military in Afghanistan being able to relate to women, which
are clearly benefits of having diversity.
Would you also agree that language accessibility in other
countries is also a benefit to the military?
Mr. Sadler. Absolutely. I was a foreign area officer for
about eight years or so in the tail end of my career because of
my growing up in Asia. So absolutely. That regional language,
cultural understanding, definitely does have a military utility
and that really should be part of the focus in forming this
discussion about diversity.
Mr. Goldman. Right. Well, in 2022, the DOD released a
finding--a report--that found that 12 percent of the military
stated that they experienced an unhealthy climate in the
military and this group was far more likely to identify as a
racial or ethnic minority, a woman, or not heterosexual.
The point of DEI is to make minorities--racial or ethnic
minorities or other underrepresented populations feel included,
so they do not have to identify as having an unhealthy climate
and I think that that point is very lost in much of what your
testimony is here today.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you. Just a little bit of housekeeping
here. On behalf of Representative Biggs, I ask unanimous
consent to submit to the record a series of public reports on
military readiness, and also, on behalf of Representative
Raskin, I submit to the record papers which he forwarded to the
Committee. So unanimous request. So ordered.
Mr. Grothman. Representative Perry?
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank each of you
for your service in uniform. We certainly appreciate it. The
country does.
I want to talk to you, sir, General Barno.
In your opening statements, you said there was no data and
no correlation regarding the description of woke policy, what
have you, and the reduction in recruiting that has also been
referenced multiple times in this hearing.
Do you have any data at all that you referred to when you
say there is no data and no correlation? Do you know of any
studies that have been conducted in this regard?
General Barno. No, my point is that there is no data that
says that there is a correlation between wokeness and
recruiting. So, I can't document data that there is no data.
Mr. Perry. So, I agree with you, right. It is hard to
quantify, I think, for a lot of people, but you certainly can't
say that there is no correlation if there is no data. There
could be a correlation. Just because you don't have the data,
or we don't have the data, doesn't mean there is no
correlation. It just doesn't--it just means you don't have any.
General Barno. We don't have any evidence that says that is
a more accurate way to say that I think.
Mr. Perry. Right. Right. You have got a long and storied
career in the U.S. Army serving commands at all levels and you
talked about eligibility and propensity. When did--for
instance, when did eligibility change? When did it go to 30
percent? Do you know? Were you still serving in uniform?
General Barno. I think it has been that way for over a
decade. So, probably yes.
Mr. Perry. OK. I would agree with you. I would agree,
because I have heard that issue for some time, and I was
serving during that last decade so I would agree with you. So,
if it has been over a decade that we have had an eligibility,
if not a propensity problem--an eligibility problem, how do you
explain that is the worst now since 1973? So, this has been
going on a long time. 25 percent in the Army--you are in my
alma mater, right, our branch of the service. How do you
explain the lack of ability to recruit? 15,000 short. If the
eligibility has generally remained the same? What has changed
if that hasn't changed?
General Barno. One of the points--and I would like, I
think, to submit an article that we wrote here a couple weeks
ago on military recruiting for the record, but it specifies in
there the drop from 30 to 23 percent last year is a huge drop.
Mr. Perry. Yes. Can you attribute it all to that seven
percent drop?
General Barno. That is a significant factor in terms of the
number of people that are out there.
Mr. Perry. I understand you. Significant. But can you
positively attribute it to that? Does your----
General Barno. Attribute what, the lack of numbers last
year?
Mr. Perry. The lack of recruiting. Yes.
General Barno. I think that is part of the answer to last
year.
Mr. Perry. How much? How much?
General Barno. I don't know.
Mr. Perry. Yes. I think that is the point.
General Barno. I think if you have fewer people that can
actually serve----
Mr. Perry. Yes, absolutely.
General Barno [continuing]. Logically then you are going to
have a more difficult time recruiting.
Mr. Perry. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think--I think that
the Army, the military, the uniformed services, should focus
generally on two things. I will just ask for each--lethality
and readiness, those two things.
Any disagreement Mr. Sadler? Dr. Mobbs? Mr. Hunt? Sir?
General Barno. I don't disagree.
Mr. Perry. OK. So, with that, because you served at all
levels, did you always have enough time to train to proficiency
in all the warfighting functions required for your units to be
effective?
General Barno. I think no one has enough time to train to
the perfect level.
Mr. Perry. I completely agree. So, how much time is
appropriate to train on things like DEI, climate change,
Whiteness or CRT? How much time did you want your service
members to sit there and endure that?
General Barno. I want to make sure my teams work and if my
teams are composed of diverse individuals, I want to make sure
we understand how to work together.
Mr. Perry. Yes, I get it. I agree with you. So, when you
joined, and when I joined, I served with people from Texas or
New York. I served with women. I served with men--Black men,
White men, Asian men, Catholic, Jewish.
You know what we all did? We all got the same haircut. We
put the same hat on. We shined our boots the same way. We used
the same weapon. If that worked for all your career and all of
my career, and it did, diversity of thought, diversity of
background, diversity of capability, diversity in every single
way, and it worked. Did it work when you were in command?
General Barno. As I mentioned, I started receiving
diversity training when I was a plebe at West Point. So, we
have done this for 30 years of my career and beyond.
Mr. Perry. Right. Right. Was it to the extent that it is
now when you were a plebe at West Point?
General Barno. I think it may be because the Army was
suffering immense problems with race relations----
Mr. Perry. So, throughout your career you kept revisiting
it at the same level it is being imposed now.
General Barno. I don't--I can't actually measure it year to
year, but it was certainly a significant part of my career.
Mr. Perry. Well, it wasn't a significant part of mine
because we knew what the right thing was, and our focus was on
the lethality and readiness. We knew who was going to get the
job done. We knew we were from diverse backgrounds.
It didn't matter, because we were focused on the mission,
sir, and the mission for commanders for the military is
lethality and our mission as leaders is lethality and readiness
to make sure we are prepared and anything that focuses on
anything other than that is a waste of our time, sir.
I yield back.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
Mr. Frost?
Mr. Frost. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
to our witnesses for being here.
I come from a military family. My father was in the Air
Force, was actually in the Air Force band, I think one of the
greatest recruitment tools. My grandfather was a First
Sergeant. I wanted to join the Air Force after I watched ``A
Few Good Men'', but found out I couldn't because of my asthma.
So, I joined America's best kept secret, the Civil Air Patrol,
and, you know, that was all I could do.
But either way, you know, we have had many, many hearings
on this Committee. I feel like we are getting to a place where
we are valuing--not me, but our friends on the other side of
the aisle--valuing quantity over quality, because as I hear a
lot of the lines of questioning coming from my colleagues, they
are just ridiculous, wild. They are not founded on facts.
I mean, No. 1, this hearing is about the military and
instead we just heard one of my colleagues disrespect retired
Lieutenant General Barno here, lecturing him on what military
readiness is.
Another colleague went on a wild rant about China--asking
you each about China and what they are doing with their
military and his line of questioning to me sounded like he
thinks the U.S. military should act more like the Chinese
military and I just wonder if he actually believes that.
And then we also have wild questions about transgender
folks in the military and I just--you know, from one of my
colleagues in talking--when we are talking about problems about
recruitment and retention, I am not sure telling transgender
soldiers that they don't belong in the military or that they
are not fit to serve is the right thing to do when we talk
about recruitment and retention.
I am here to find solutions rooted in facts. It has been
stated time and time again no data shows that DEI or woke or
whatever impacts recruitment, retention, and/or confidence in
the military in a big way and I think it is really important to
know that these efforts, when we talk about diversity, equity,
and inclusion, and they have been under many names, have been
part of the U.S. military ever since the draft was abolished in
1973 and these efforts traditionally have been supported by
both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
But I think because now we are seeing that the politics is
kind of shifting and I guess woke is part of the Republican
talking points now, we are having a hearing on this.
I even heard somebody bring--up one of the witnesses--an
unspoken rule on pressures of promotions can be based on quotas
or DEI or et cetera. I think it is important to know 76 percent
of active-duty officers in the U.S. military right now are
White.
And so, I just--I highly doubt that there is an unspoken
pressure that is pushing people to promote based on DEI, race,
or et cetera. Our military has about 1.3 million active
personnel. However, women recruits continue to climb. Men still
make up 82 percent of our military.
I think it is important to know that recent surveys have
found that an estimate 21 percent of women in the military and
about four percent of men have experienced unwanted sexual
contact in the prior year.
Mr. Sadler, would you say that staggering numbers like that
might, just might, contribute to some of the lapse in
recruitment we have seen?
Mr. Sadler. Well, I think you have to also put it in the
context of the Nation because the military is a part of the
American society.
Mr. Frost. But do you think that is part of the numbers we
are seeing in recruitment going down?
Mr. Sadler. It is one of the parts, but it is not a new
part.
Mr. Frost. OK. Thank you so much.
General Barno--yes, it is not new. Sexual harassment has
been around. What we are seeing that, when we talk about these
programs, we are looking to bring those numbers down and I
think we also have to look at the way that our military
personnel live and that is a huge reason why we are seeing
lapse in recruitment.
General Barno, 15 years ago, the U.S. Army established
SHARP, a program to combat sexual assault in the ranks. Former
Secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy, said it is clear we have
significant work to do to regain our soldiers' trust in our
sexual harassment and assault response. What additional steps
do you think the military can take to accomplish this?
General Barno. I think the U.S. Army who has the SHARP
program has been dissatisfied with the results of that.
Certainly, we haven't seen the numbers go down and I know that
is a concern for all military leaders out there.
My own exploration into that, having two sons on active
duty during part of that time, is that I don't think the chain
of command owned that program as much as they needed to, to
make a difference. I think it became a program where, as with
other programs, implementation of the program is a problem. The
idea of the goals are laudable, but the implementation needed
to be focused on the chain of command making that case to their
soldiers and I don't think that is how it was set up.
Mr. Frost. Thank you for your response. And while the
military is moving in the right direction on this, there--with
these modest improvements there is a lot more that needs to be
done. I mean, it wasn't enough to save people like Private
Nicole Burnham, who was sexually assaulted twice shortly after
being stationed in South Korea and took her own life after her
command did nothing. This is not an issue of wokeness. We are
talking about the women in our military that are serving our
country, defending our freedom, that deserve to not be
assaulted in the workplace. And we, as Members of Congress,
need to look at how are we protecting them, how are we ensuring
that the quality of life for our service members are better
than it is right now.
And I want to ask, while we are here talking about
wokeness, where is the outrage on ensuring that we can raise
wages of military members? Seventy-four percent of our military
budget goes toward contractors. Why are we not talking about
that?
Why are we not talking about what happened just last week
on this Committee in this room where my friends on the other
side of the aisle were gunning and going for telework, which
military spouses disproportionately use to help support their
household because the wages are not where it needs to be?
So, this is about politics, not about policy. It is not
about things rooted in facts and the facts show--well, there is
no data that shows that wokeness is a part of the problems we
are seeing in terms of recruitment.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Next, we have Mr. Higgins.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, a gradual emasculation of our country has
been happening for decades, so the modern progressive woke
movement is not completely to blame. But, we seek truth in this
Committee, so let is talk about it and the first truth I will
acknowledge is my deep respect for General Scott Perry, a
combat veteran who has earned the right to ask his fellow
combat veteran anything he wants to ask him on this Committee.
I joined the Army in 1988, went through bootcamp in 1989,
Military Police Academy right after. One station unit training
at Fort McClellan. I didn't join for money. I left money to
serve my country. That is why most young soldiers, with the
encouragement of their family, which I will get to in a moment,
that is why most young soldiers join the Army.
In society, woke is a social discussion, but in the
military, woke is weak and that is the problem. In the 1990's,
I recall a recruiter friend. He called me. He said, Clay, most
of these youngsters we are trying to sign-up by now they never
been in a fistfight. It was an issue.
The Army had to make adjustments. Said these kids have
never climbed a tree, never been in a fistfight. So, this thing
has been gradual for a long time. To not acknowledge that is
not squared away. That was the 1990's. On March the 1st of this
year, I was struck looking at the front page at Epoch Times. It
says almost 80 percent of Americans aged 17 to 24 aren't fit
for military service.
Department of Defense reports that 77 percent of young
Americans physically unqualified to enter the Army--enter the
military. Unbelievable. And I was researching at that time, the
Secretary of the Navy, for a meeting with him.
Same day, from his website and the Epoch Times, same day.
The most pressing challenges confronted in the United States
Navy and Marine Corps three of the top four: climate
instability, COVID's ongoing impact, and strengthening the
naval culture of inclusiveness and respect.
Not readiness and lethality, as this highly qualified
combat commanding general noted earlier. Climate change, and
diversity, and COVID, three of the top four concerns of our
United States Navy right now.
Since the United States ended the draft in 1973, young
adults from southern states have been over-represented among
new military recruits. No other region experienced as wide a
disparity in military representation versus population. This
way it works.
Southern states have been providing the bulk of our
military recruits for a long time, and what is happening now is
families are holding our youngsters back, General. Families are
saying don't join.
You are right. I cite your own words, good sir. During the
first years in recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many
military experts worried that the constant deployments would
break the force since they expected that fewer young Americans
would volunteer to serve in a wartime military.
Thankfully, that didn't happen. Yet, a perilous recruiting
crisis began just after the United States fully withdrew from
Afghanistan last summer when Biden was the President, when woke
began in the military. We had young American families willing
to go and join the military during heavy warfare. These are
your words, General, an article you wrote.
So, warfare didn't stop young Americans and American
families from joining the Army but woke has because we are
southern families, we are conservative families, and we are not
going to encourage our young men and women to join and endure
that stuff. I would like to have five hours with these folks,
Mr. Chairman, but it appears my southern drawl has absorbed my
five minutes here.
Mr. Grothman. All right. Somebody ought to do a study and
see if the same speech was read by someone in the north, how--.
But in any event, Congressman Gosar?
Mr. Gosar. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Today's military
leadership has become the world's laughingstock, more concerned
about appeasing the left-wing ideologues than about having the
world's most lethal fighting forces. Eight-thousand-four-
hundred members of our military were kicked out because they
refused an ineffective, harmful, and deadly vaccine. The U.S.
military is permitting the recruitment of mentally troubled
people who think they were born in the wrong gender and is even
paying for their sex change surgeries and harmful chemical
infusions.
The Navy is hosting drag shows on their ships. By the way,
I don't think China and Iran are too worried about diversity
and gender ideology.
Military schools are focused on describing oral sex,
masturbation, and pornography in books too disgusting to
mention out loud in this Committee room. Lloyd Austin, the
Secretary of Defense issued, quote, ``a stand down'' of the
entire military in 2021 because he falsely believed the
military is systematically racist. What an insult to our brave
men and women.
General Milley, instead of fulfilling his constitutional
duty to serve Donald Trump, the duly elected President at the
time, representing the voice of the American people, conspired
with both Nancy Pelosi and a foreign adversary, the CCP, on
separate occasions, to hatch plans to overthrow the sitting
President of the United States. What insurrection, you say?
The point of all these actions is clear. Cleanse the
military of conservatives and the consequences are devastating.
Recruitment is down. Morale is down. Our enemies are
emboldened. It needs to stop.
Mr. Sadler and Mr. Hunt, in what ways does graphically
describing oral sex, masturbation, and pornography in military
school children's schoolbooks help military families?
Mr. Sadler. I can't think of any circumstance that it
would.
Mr. Gosar. Mr. Hunt?
Mr. Hunt. I doesn't.
Mr. Gosar. How does paying for sex change surgeries and
chemical infusions ensure military readiness?
Mr. Sadler?
Mr. Sadler. It doesn't, and in fact that is a distraction
and from resources and time of a service member and they should
be serving. They would have to be in medical and psychological
care before going back to active duty. So absolutely not.
Mr. Gosar. Mr. Hunt?
Mr. Hunt. I think it is an embarrassment for our Department
of Defense.
Mr. Gosar. So, how has Lloyd Austin's stand down due to the
imagined White supremacy improve military readiness? Can you
think of anything, Mr. Sadler?
Mr. Sadler. I think it was completely and wholly
unnecessary. When you look at the figures before, during, and
after the events of January 6, which was the trigger for
supposed--this event, none of the facts bear reason for his
action and it hasn't changed anything. In fact, the data
collection has gotten a little better, but it still needs to
go--little further to get better in the annual reports from
DOD. But there is no seeming--no statistical change.
Mr. Gosar. Mr. Hunt?
Mr. Hunt. Absolutely I agree with my colleague here. There
is there is no statistical change. If you look at the numbers
this year, they looked at it and said there might be 100 cases
of supposed extremism, and that is out of 2.1 million people in
armed forces. That is .005 percent of our military are supposed
extremists. But yet, our Secretary of Defense shut down the
military for that reason.
Mr. Gosar. It is crazy. So, now, how does throwing out
thousands of soldiers for refusing to take a deadly
experimental vaccine that led to over 20,000 deaths and over a
million injuries affect morale, not just statistics up to the
date? How would that affect the morale?
Mr. Hunt?
Mr. Hunt. I think it would absolutely destroy morale in a
lot of units in our military.
Mr. Gosar. Would you agree, Mr. Sadler?
Mr. Sadler. I think the way in which it was executed was
definitely lacking. The military has a history of this with
anthrax. But if it is a lawful military order, you have to take
the vaccine, unfortunately. How they actually dealt with
religious exceptions and other follow-up and the way that they
drummed people out that, I think, needs to be reviewed and
probably rectified.
Mr. Gosar. Continuing on that line of questioning, do you
support--and looking back at these individuals that were
excused from or forced out of the military--they weren't
excused--to be able to become back fully pensioned?
Mr. Sadler. Absolutely. I think they should have their
situations reviewed.
Mr. Gosar. Do you agree with that, Mr. Hunt?
Mr. Hunt. I do absolutely.
Mr. Gosar. Got you. What kind of message does General
Milley's communications with Nancy Pelosi and the CCP behind
President Trump's back send to rank and file military members?
Mr. Sadler?
Mr. Sadler. It sends a politicized one, quite frankly, and
simply put.
Mr. Gosar. Does it belong in the military?
Mr. Sadler. Absolutely not, not for uniformed military
leaders.
Mr. Gosar. Who is the commander in chief?
Mr. Sadler. The President.
Mr. Gosar. Mr. Hunt?
Mr. Hunt. I think it sends a message that our senior DOD
officials seem to be more focused on political--pet projects
than actually the insurance of readiness in our force.
Mr. Gosar. Last question. Should they be held accountable?
Mr. Sadler?
Mr. Sadler. Absolutely.
Mr. Gosar. Mr. Hunt?
Mr. Hunt. Absolutely.
Mr. Gosar. Thank you. I yield.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you. Mr. Armstrong?
Mr. Armstrong. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Like the rest of my Republican colleagues, I am concerned
that politics is getting in the way of our military carrying
out its vital mission. The Department of Defense, on its own
website states, ``Our mission is to provide the military forces
needed to deter war and ensure our Nation's security.''
To me, that is a very clear mission statement. But this
Administration has pulled out of thin air requirements that
have nothing to do with the stated military mission.
For example, in 2021, President Biden issued a pair of
executive orders demanding that our military tackle the climate
crisis as an essential element of national security and address
the impacts of climate change by developing a Climate Action
Plan.
This led to the military leaning into environmental
justice, changing all nontactical vehicles to electric by 2035,
and the GSA proposing new emission standards for Federal
contractors.
In that list, I heard absolutely nothing that prepares our
troops to deter war and ensure our Nation's security. Instead,
perhaps our Democratic colleagues would like us to look like
the shining example of climate virtuosity, China.
China was responsible for 26 percent of the global
emissions in 2019. The People's Republic of China now has the
world's largest solar energy capacity.
Moreover, the International Energy Agency states that
China's share in all key manufacturing stages of solar panels
exceeds 80 percent. Sounds like China is making great strides
toward clean energy. But this is built on the backs of the
Uighurs, a Muslim minority population that China is desperately
trying to eradicate by forcing them into reeducation camps and
slave labor.
The United States Department of Labor estimates that up to
45 percent of the material used to manufacture solar panels
comes from the province in which the Uighurs reside. How can
clean energy truly be clean when it is built on the backs of
slave labor?
And while China is using slave labor to fool my Democratic
colleagues into believing they are a paragon of climate change,
the Administration is running around in circles attempting to
catch up with these false statistics rather than relying on
what is actually necessary for our military to succeed.
I support any energy policy that lowers costs of energy for
Americans and, similarly, I support any energy policy that
helps our military fulfill its mission to deter war.
I do not see that at all in these progressive policies in
our Nation's fighting force.
Mr. Hunt, DOD policies mandated that all military
nontactical vehicles transition to electric vehicles by 2035.
Electric vehicles rely on lithium ion batteries. The
International Energy Agency states that today's battery and
mineral supply chains revolves around China.
China produces three-quarters of the lithium ion batteries
and is home to 70 percent of production capacity cathodes and
85 percent of anodes. Over half of the world's lithium cobalt
graphite processing and refining capacity is located in China.
Do you think it is in the best interest of American
national security be so reliant on China for sourcing lithium
ion batteries that are essential for electric vehicles
Democrats are demanding our military rely on?
Mr. Hunt. No, I do not.
Mr. Armstrong. Mr. Sadler, this summer I joined my
Republican Energy and Commerce Committee colleagues in sending
a letter to EPA Administrator asking for information on
potential blackouts and grid instability.
Like the military, California announced that all new cars
sold must be electric by 2035. Yet, just two days later,
California's electric grid was in crisis and officials were
asking citizens not to charge their electric vehicles. If
California cannot handle its current electric demands, I fail
to see how it will thrive when so many new electric vehicles
enter the market. Do you have any concerns about converting all
nontactical military vehicles to electric by 2035?
Mr. Sadler. Actually, I have two concerns with this.
One, if the military----
Mr. Armstrong. Just two? Because I have more.
Mr. Sadler. Two big ones to mention on this particular
topic. One, if there is a war that occurs with China it is
going to rely on military footprint that is in the West Coast,
California, obviously, home to a lot of these bases.
If their infrastructure and logistics can't support
military operations or the military can't have access to
reliable energy, then that has a tactical impact on a war that
could occur this decade.
The second thing is, if you have a platform that is only
reliable on an electrical source and you don't have multiple
ways of providing that electrical energy, either solar, out in
the field, as well as maybe a diesel generator located from
place to place, you hamstring your operational resiliency.
And so, therefore, it comes with a tactical cost, and I
think right now the intent is just in the United States that
mitigates only on that second point, but not on the first if we
get into a fight with China.
Mr. Armstrong. Ms. Mobbs, last week a headline on Defense
One read wokeism is not an issue top military leaders say. The
byline read inclusion is actually a critical part of unit
cohesion, Air Force Chief and Marine Commandant said.
Air Force Chief of Staff General C.Q. Brown and Marine
Commandant General David Berger gave exclusive interviews to
Defense One on the topic of this hearing.
How do you refute their claims both as a former service
member and an expert on the issue?
Ms. Mobbs. Do I have time to respond?
Mr. Armstrong. I am toward the end, so I am assuming yes,
but I am not in charge.
Mr. Grothman. Oh, yes. Sure. Sure. Absolutely.
Ms. Mobbs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Congressman, I think it is a very important question
because I think ultimately what we are seeing here right now is
the use of language to try to dissuade or dismiss some very
real concerns about what DEI looks like, what diversity,
equity, inclusion looks like in its current form. And the
reality is, actually there is data that suggests that woke
practices are impacting recruitment and retention. That does
need to be answered.
For example, the reason why the Reagan National Survey
found a major decrease in confidence in the military was 30
percent cited woke practices undermine military effectiveness.
That data does exist. Secondarily, the Monitoring the Future
survey, which has measured representative samples nationally of
12th graders since 1975, found, in fact, that the biggest
decrease was among Democratic White men.
In 2018, 18 percent of them expressed a desire to serve in
the military. That is now only 2.9 percent. So, that is a
precipitous drop in a specific population receiving messages
around what the military looks like with regard to things like
diversity, equity, inclusion. And I think it is very important
we begin talking about that, not in this kind of necessarily
broad woke framework, but what the data actually shows in terms
of how that impacts desire to serve and propensity to want to
serve our Nation.
Mr. Armstrong. Thank you. Thank you. I should have talked
less and let you talk more. I apologize. I yield back.
Mr. Grothman. Very good. Mr. LaTurner?
Mr. LaTurner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for
being here today.
It is a time of significant geopolitical upheaval. The fog
of war hovers over Ukraine, communist China is increasing their
aggression, and individuals on the terrorist watch list are
slipping into our country through our porous southern border.
Alarmingly, given this context, I have received numerous
complaints from enlisted members of our military regarding the
waste of valuable time and capital on frivolous matters like
affirmational pronoun training and subject matter adjacent to
critical race theory.
The Biden Administration is prioritizing short-term
political gains over our long-term national security. One of
Congress' foremost duties is ensuring our brave servicemen and
women have the resources that they need to defend America's
interests at home and abroad.
America's combat readiness is incumbent upon our troops'
ability to fight alongside one another as a cohesive unit under
one flag, regardless of demographic or creed. If service
members are taught to view one another with suspicion on
account of their upbringing or come to believe they are
fighting on behalf of a country built upon inherently flawed
principles, America's military strength will continue to be
undermined.
Forcing progressive ideology on our service members
threatens to degrade the morale, camaraderie, and effectiveness
of our armed forces.
It is also important to note that American taxpayers are
unknowingly subsidizing this divisive rhetoric. Recruiting
shortfalls and the relaxation of physical standards have become
a feature of the Biden Administration DOD agenda. I have long
been a proponent of big stick ideology, but deterrence through
militaristic strength doesn't work while we are wielding a
twig.
Mr. Sadler, your colleagues at the Heritage Foundation,
Travis Fisher and Maya Clarke, have recently written about a
proposed change by the Biden Administration to the Federal
Acquisition Regulations I find deeply concerning.
This pending rulemaking would force arbitrary greenhouse
gas emission standards, as determined by the Paris Climate
Accord, upon the Department of Defense and other major Federal
suppliers and contractors. Not only would this weekend our
defense industrial base and materials procurement capabilities,
but it would take approximately $4 billion to implement this
asinine rule. You could purchase 42 F-35 fighter jets for that
sum.
In your opinion, is there something else DOD contractors
should be prioritizing over their greenhouse gas emissions?
Mr. Sadler. Quite a long list, actually. If we are
hamstrung by resources and budgets, leveling more requirements
and more cost on an already overly constrained budget and
resourcing to build the military needed, and also have
contractors provide the supplies we need, it is the wrong
direction and, in fact, at a dangerous time.
What would be better would be to look at what the military
requirements--look at what the services need in capability and
capacity and readiness and fund to that.
Transitioning to a green energy or transitioning into new
regulations to try to meet a Paris Accord requirement distract
from that, and we--certainly in a time when we don't have the
resources for it.
Mr. LaTurner. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you. I think we have got everybody
here. I would like to yield to Ranking Member Garcia one more
time. He has got some closing remarks.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to just begin
just by reading a couple consented following items into the
record: an article by General Barno on addressing the
recruiting crisis, also a previous article by General Barno and
Dr. Benson Hill on the curse of racism in the military, a
statement from Ms. Kathy Watt Bouquet of Blue Star Families as
well. So, if I can put those into the record before I make my
comments.
Mr. Garcia. We have heard a lot of testimony today, some of
it, quite frankly harmful. Much of the comments that we heard
today I think we would have heard at hearings and congressional
hearings in the 1960's, the 1970's, the 1980's and some in the
1990's.
Now, our military is drawn from our incredible people,
reflects our ideals and its diversity. Our military will
continue to change as does our country.
I also want to address this idea that it has been said over
and over again that the military is being used by the woke left
for some sort of social engineering agenda.
Was it woke for President Truman to desegregate the armed
forces in 1948? During the Vietnam War, we saw racial tensions
between Black Americans and Black servicemen and White
servicemen.
Was it woke then to address those issues for Black
servicemen? Was it woke when we finally allowed gay men and
women to serve openly in the military? Was it woke when we
currently try to protect service members from rape or sexual
assault?
So, each of those policies at the time were considered by
many progressives, traditionalists, and the right-wing as a
version of woke, or a version too far, or too diverse or too
inclusive.
And so, I think that we are just hearing the same thing
over again. As we note, the military continues to be the best
in the world, and we all continue to support that mission.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you very much.
First of all, so ordered on the paper you have there.
I would like to thank you all for being here today. I wish
we could go another couple hours, because there were some
questions there at the end that I thought the answers were so
very good and I think it is too bad some of our guys only got
four minutes or five minutes to question.
It is scary what you are telling us, which is kind of in
line with what I have heard from talking to people in the
military. I don't know whether Lieutenant General Barno knows
it, but anywhere in the real world with this pronoun training
is considered kind of embarrassing and foolish. I am
disappointed to see we have some of that in our military.
I think lowering physical standards is a scary thing. There
are reasons the standards were there in the first place and our
goal should be to be, as Mr. Perry said, a lethal fighting
force, not one excessively concerned with bean counting.
I think when you get over concerned with this diversity
stuff, as Mr. Sadler said, there is always concerns that
promotions will be made, not on the base of the best person to
give us the best fighting force, but to make the form look the
best.
It is shocking to me that we pay people over $200,000 a
year to do this diversity training. I mean, these people almost
by definition when they get a major in something like this are
inundated in their head with this idea that we have a horrible
racist America and we have to do something about it.
So, I think they would be overpaid for free. The fact that
they are paid $200,000 when we are short of money in our
military makes it all the more scandalous and it is scary that
people at the top of the military apparently have such warped
thinking, that they think it is a good expenditure of funds.
But in any event, I am glad you were here today. If you
have any more to give our Committee, please give us more. It
was a great hearing and a lot of people sure missed it--missed
out on it--all the empty seats we have behind you guys.
But, again, thank you for being here one more time and,
hopefully, Congress will do what we can to do what the average
fighting man and woman wants and stand up to--as the corporate
world has to put up with--stand up to some of the woke people
who somehow have gotten themselves to the top.
I suppose, you know, there are just--there is a certain
type of person both in the corporate world and the military
that seems to work their way to the top and it is a shame and I
think that is what we were educated on today.
So, thank you one more time and with that and without
objection, all Members have five legislative days within which
to submit materials and submit additional written questions for
the witnesses, which will be forwarded to the witnesses for
their response.
If there is no further business, without objection, the
Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:16 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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