[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 108 (Wednesday, June 26, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4562-S4563]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, the men and women who serve in our 
military are incredible patriots, and the National Defense 
Authorization Act, NDAA, is a vitally important bill the Senate passes 
every year to ensure our servicemembers are trained, equipped, and 
ready for the global threats our Nation faces. To this end, investing 
in our ready and all-volunteer force to ensure we maintain a military 
competitive advantage is crucial. I would like to highlight three 
amendments that I have introduced to enhance the fiscal year 2020 NDAA.
  My first amendment addresses an increasing concern regarding deaths 
and injuries related to military training. Our men and women in uniform 
volunteer to serve in a profession that carries a great deal of 
inherent risk and can demand great sacrifice. Many have paid the 
ultimate sacrifice with their lives upon the fields of battle. 
Unfortunately, many have also died while training for battle. To ensure 
that our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines are the best fighting 
force in the world, our military necessarily exercises them in 
demanding and realistic training. Effective military training builds 
readiness, tactical proficiency. and competence, and increases the 
confidence of our military force to win wars. I am concerned, however, 
that, under the guise of ``realistic training,'' the military is 
assuming unnecessary risk that has resulted in an alarming increase in 
servicemembers' training-related deaths.
  In the past 9 weeks alone, six soldiers and marines have been killed 
in military vehicle rollover accidents during training; an additional 
34 service members have been injured. One of those killed on May 9, 
2019, was my constituent from Chestertown, MD, 24-year-old Marine 1LT, 
Hugh Conor McDowell, when his light armored vehicle rolled over during 
a military training event at Camp Pendleton, CA.
  Since 2015, noncombat deaths have exceeded the number of military 
members killed in action every year. A 2018 House Armed Services 
Committee Report stated, ``In 2017, nearly four times as many members 
of the military died in training accidents as were killed in combat. In 
all, 21 Service members died in combat while 80 died as a result of 
non-combat training-related accidents.'' Training accidents are 
occurring across the spectrum of military platforms, military aviation 
incidents rose nearly 40 percent from 2013 to 2017. resulting in 133 
military deaths; in 2017, 17 sailors were killed in two separate naval 
ship collisions. Three of those who died were also Maryland residents.
  Something needs to change in the military's current culture of 
training safety, and the most recent losses of life reflect that the 
current culture is increasing risk, not reducing it. When military 
training yields nearly four times the casualties compared to combat, 
training is no longer realistic, it is unsafe. These training accidents 
are resulting in the unnecessary death and injury of our servicmembers 
and are severely degrading our military readiness. No justifiable 
reason exists for training that assumes unnecessary risk and disregards 
the safety of our men and women in uniform. This worrisome trendline 
since 2015 demands a serious examination of military training safety 
and implementation of associated corrective actions across the entire 
Department of Defense.
  I have filed an amendment to the NDAA, which I hope the Senate will 
consider, that would require the Department of Defense to conduct a 
study that analyzes the recent training deaths of servicemembers; 
provides an assessment of the associated trends, including vehicle 
rollovers; and demands recommendations for actions to prevent or 
minimize such deaths and injuries in the future. This report would be 
due to Congress no later than 180 days after the enactment of the NDAA. 
We owe it to the individuals who volunteer to serve, and their 
families, to improve the military's culture of training safety and 
prevent unnecessary deaths and injuries from occurring in training 
environments.
  Another important aspect of the NDAA is to ensure that our military 
is investing in modernization and innovation to preserve our strategic 
competitive advantage against our adversaries. I was pleased that 
Senators Inhofe and Reed have included two of my amendments in division 
E, the so-called managers' package of amendments to the substitute 
amendment to the underlying bill. My two amendments focus on preserving 
and bolstering modernization and innovation.
  One of these amendments seeks to maintain the Nation's technological 
superiority in energetics research and development. Energetics plays a 
critical role in our national security in enhancing propulsion and 
ordnance systems' effectiveness in terms ofreach, accuracy, and 
lethality. Other nations, such as China and Russia, continue to make 
strides in energetic material development, and the U.S. cannot afford 
to fall behind. My amendment would require the Department of Defense to 
develop an energetics research and development plan to ensure a long-
term, multidomain research, development, prototyping, and 
experimentations effort, which will have the additional benefit of 
maintaining a robust defense industrial base and trained workforce. It 
also requires the Secretary to work in conjunction with DOD Research 
Labs, labs such as the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Indian Head, MD. 
Indian Head is one of the premier research and development facilities 
for energetics. The DOD would be required to brief the relevant 
congressional Defense committees on this plan within a year of the 
NDAA's enactment into law.
  My other amendment seeks to preserve funding and staffing of Army 
medical research and development efforts. The Department of Defense and 
the Army's medical research and development efforts are critical to 
increase warfighter readiness through improving health protection and 
resilience, improving health delivery in deployed areas, and enhancing 
the recovery and rehabilitation of our wounded servicemembers.
  The Army's medical research and development has played a key role for 
the Department of Defense, executing over 78 percent of DO D's medical 
research, development, testing, and evaluation funding. I am proud to 
say that the majority of this work runs through Ft. Detrick, MD, often 
in partnership with the medical research programs at John's Hopkins, 
the University of Maryland, and the Kennedy Krieger Institute. The 
Army's medical research efforts have addressed medical issues unique to 
the military, which private industry and academia have lacked interest 
in conducting. Some examples include blast injuries, brain trauma, and 
endemic diseases across the globe that our military has mobilized to 
address, such as the Ebola outbreak in

[[Page S4563]]

Liberia. We need to ensure that in addition to investing in next 
generation weapons to deter or destroy our adversaries, the Department 
of Defense is preserving research and development resourcing for next 
generation medical solutions that protect and save the lives of our 
servicemen and women.
  Readiness, modernization, and innovation are key pillars of the; 
fiscal year 2020 NDAA; my three amendments strengthen those focus areas 
by ensuring our servicemembers are receiving realistic but safe 
training, are supported by weapons that are enhanced by energetic 
materials, and are protected and treated by world-class military 
medical solutions during their training and deployments. Our 
servicemembers deserve the best, and our national security requires 
that we maintain our competitive advantage. Let us ensure the fiscal 
year 2020 NDAA incorporates the training safety, technological 
innovation, and continued development of medical solutions required to 
do so.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at its next 
printing, the name of the Senator from Texas, Mr. Cruz, be added as 
cosponsor to S. 663 to S. 1790, to authorize appropriations for fiscal 
year 2020 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for 
military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of 
Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, 
and for other purposes.

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