[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 86 (Wednesday, May 22, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3050-S3051]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            TRIBUTE TO LIEUTENANT GENERAL SAMUEL A. GREAVES

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Lt. Gen. 
Samuel A. Greaves, Director of the Missile Defense Agency, on the 
advent of his retirement from the U.S. Air Force after 37 years of 
military service to this great country.
  General Greaves' long and storied career began when he was 
commissioned in 1982 through the Air Force Reserve Officer Training 
Corps Program after he graduated from Cornell University. Throughout 
his service, he has held a variety of assignments in operational, 
acquisition, and staff units, including assignments at Headquarters Air 
Combat Command; the National Reconnaissance Office; and on the Air 
Staff. He commanded the 45th Launch Group at Patrick AFB, Florida, the 
Launch and Range Systems Wing, the Military Satellite Communications 
Systems Wing, also served as vice commander, Space and Missile Systems 
Center at Los Angeles AFB. He later served as the director, strategic 
plans, programs and analyses, Headquarters Air Force Space Command, 
Peterson AFB, Colorado, and then was assigned as the deputy director, 
Missile Defense Agency, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. Prior to his current 
assignment, he was the commander, Space and Missile Systems Center, Air 
Force Space Command, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California.
  His operational experience is exceptional and includes work on the 
space shuttle, Titan, Atlas and Delta space-launch systems. He 
currently wears the Command Space Badge, a joint Air Force and Army 
award for training, experience, and assignments in space warning, 
satellite command and control, missile operations, space surveillance, 
and/or space lift.
  During his tour, the Agency and the Department of Defense made 
significant progress in addressing current and emerging ballistic 
missile threats by fielding, upgrading, and improving missile defenses 
to provide U.S. military commanders a highly effective ballistic 
missile defense capability to defend the United States and its deployed 
troops, U.S. allies, and friends around the world. He also laid the 
groundwork for the Agency's pursuit of technologies and systems to 
track and defeat hypersonic glide vehicle threats. General Greaves 
implemented a clear strategy focusing on maintaining the reliability of 
the Ballistic Missile Defense System, BMDS, to build warfighter 
confidence, increasing capability and capacity of fielded missile 
defense systems, and making measured investments to address the 
advanced threat.
  While serving as the director, Missile Defense Agency, General 
Greaves demonstrated superior leadership, extraordinary dedication, and 
exceptional professionalism as the key interface between MDA and the 
Office of the Secretary of Defense, Joint Staff, Combatant Commands, 
Services and Military Departments, the Department of State, and 
international partners. He also

[[Page S3051]]

worked very closely with the administration and Congress to support 
significant improvements to the Nation's missile defense programs and 
plans in 2017, known as the missile defeat and defense enhancements, 
that resulted in Congress increasing the Missile Defense Agency's 
budget request for fiscal year 2018 from $7.8 billion to over $11.5 
billion, which represents both the largest single year increase and 
total budget in MDA's history.
  General Greaves placed a high priority on increasing the ground-based 
midcourse defense's, GMD, fleet reliability and confidence by upgrading 
fielded GBIs, implementing improvements in new production GBIs, and 
incorporating reliability, producibility and sustainability 
improvements in future GBI designs. General Greaves oversaw GMD ground 
system modernization, to include delivery of Ground System 7A, which 
removed obsolete equipment from the kill chain, eliminated cyber 
defense vulnerabilities, and improved redundancy for the warfighter. He 
also pressed forward with key reliability improvements, including the 
development of the redesigned kill vehicle, RKV, and upgrading of the 
GMD Communications Network, and launch support equipment.
  General Greaves also successfully completed the expansion of the 
Nation's deployed GBI fleet to 44 interceptors in 2017, known as 44 by 
17, which resulted in a nearly 50 percent increase in the number of 
deployed interceptors available for use by the warfighter.
  Moreover, in response to the growing North Korean ICBM threat, in 
December 2017, General Greaves began executing Department and 
congressional guidance in the missile defeat and defense enhancements 
plan to further expand the GBI fleet to a total of 64 deployed GBIs by 
2023 through the rapid and efficient construction of a new, fourth 
missile field at Fort Greely, AK, which will add 20 additional 
operational silos to the GMD system.
  If this were not enough, he oversaw multiple successful flight tests. 
This includes flight test ground-based midcourse test 11, FTG-11, a GBI 
salvo test against a complex, threat representative ICBM-class target. 
This intercept flight test was so successful that the director for the 
Department Operational Test and Evaluation, DOT&E, Agency directed 
DOT&E staff to refer to FTG-11 as the first operational flight test of 
the ground-based midcourse defense system. FTM-45, also conducted under 
his direction, demonstrated an Aegis BMD organic engagement using a SM-
3 Blk IIA against a MRBM, a key milestone for the SM-3 Block IIA return 
to flight. In addition, he directed the flight test integrated 3, FTI-
03, an operational live fire test demonstrating the engage-on-remote 
capability of the Aegis Weapon System to track and intercept an IRBM 
target with an Aegis Ashore-launched SM-3 Block IIA interceptor. This 
test demonstrated the effectiveness of the European phased adaptive 
approach phase 3 architecture and supports a critical acquisition 
milestone for the SM-3 Block IIA missile program.
  General Greaves also laid the foundation for the Long Range 
Discrimination Radar, Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaii, Pacific Radar, and 
other discrimination improvements to improve homeland defense against 
emerging threats. He further advanced the development of two-stage 
booster capability to provide additional homeland defense battle-space 
capability by enabling shorter engagement times without the expense of 
a separate development program. He also continued improvements in the 
command and control, battle management and communication 
infrastructure, which provides persistent acquisition, tracking, 
cueing, discrimination, and fire-control quality data to Aegis 
Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD), GMD, Terminal High Altitude Area 
Defense, THAAD, Patriot, and coalition partners to support homeland and 
regional missile defense.
  General Greaves was further responsible for major BMDS capability 
enhancements and asset deployments around the globe. He guided program 
plans to strengthen regional defenses by continuing deliveries of 
Standard Missile-3, SM-3, Block IBs, for use on Aegis BMD ships and at 
Aegis Ashore-Romania, and THAAD interceptors. After fielding the THAAD 
Battery to South Korea, in late 2017, the commander of United States 
Forces Korea requested tighter coupling between THAAD and Patriot units 
in theater. General Greaves worked with Army PEO Missiles and Space on 
proposed solutions to address the request and improve regional 
ballistic missile defense. He also pushed for the development of a 
future THAAD system, including development of a remote launcher 
capability, integration of Patriot MSE interceptor and launcher into 
the THAAD Weapon System, and improved interoperability by enabling 
Patriot Launch-on-Remote (THAAD).
  He also continued advancement of the Aegis BMD system in 
collaboration with the Navy to counter growing and more complex 
threats, including improvements in system and missile reliability as 
well as increases in Aegis BMD engagement capacity and lethality, 
including work on the Aegis Weapon System, Aegis Ashore-Poland, the SM-
3 IIA program, and Sea Based Terminal defense. General Greaves kept the 
Agency on track to deliver the initial SM-3 Block IIA missiles 
developed in cooperation with Japan to support European phased adaptive 
approach, EPAA, phase 3. He oversaw the construction of the Aegis 
Ashore system in Poland in support of EPAA Phase 3 to improve European 
NATO defenses against medium- and intermediate-range ballistic 
missiles, which is expected to be delivered in 2020.
  General Greaves has been a tireless advocate for the development and 
deployment of a critically needed space sensor layer for hypersonic and 
missile defense, the need for which can be best summed by the general 
himself when he said: ``If you can't see it, you can't shoot it.'' As a 
result of his efforts, the Congress continually funded the MDA to 
develop such a capability. In 2019, the general partnered with DARPA 
and the Air Force on the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor 
Program, which is now working with industry to reduce the key risks for 
this space sensor layer.
  He also successfully completed the development and deployment of a 
network of sensor payloads hosted on commercial satellites, called 
Space-based Kill Assessment, or SKA. This program will collect data on 
missile intercepts, and inform the post-intercept assessment by the 
warfighter. This capability will provide the warfighter the option to 
adjust their shot doctrine to more efficiently manage interceptor 
inventory, thereby dramatically increasing the number of threats the 
system can engage for the defense of the homeland. In fact, when 
warfighters took part in simulations involving SKA they were so highly 
impressed by this new capability they requested it be made operational 
sooner than MDA had planned. The SKA program has been so impressive 
that the Department recently recognized MDA, under General Greaves 
leadership, for its acquisition success by presenting it with the 
Packard Award for Acquisition Excellence for the development of SKA.
  General Greaves demonstrated his commitment to expand work with U.S. 
international partners, to include conducting joint analyses to support 
partner missile defense acquisition decisions, cooperative research and 
development projects, deploying BMD assets, foreign military sales, 
FMS, and coproduction efforts. Under General Greave's leadership, the 
Agency executed an historic FMS case with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 
for seven THAAD batteries and accompanying launchers, radars, and 
interceptors. In addition, he continued work on the co-development with 
Japan of the SM-3 Block IIA missile that will be deployed to the 
operational Aegis Ashore missile defense sites in Romania and Poland.
  His exceptional leadership style influenced an organization of over 
10,000 personnel across 13 time zones. These distinctive 
accomplishments of General Greaves are monumental. As he and his wife 
Patricia prepare for retirement, I want to thank them for their service 
to the United States of America--General Greaves and Patricia--Bravo 
Zulu.

                          ____________________