[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 8760-8761]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO FRANCIS HARVEY

 Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, today I wish to speak about a 
recent change in the top leadership in our Army. Dr. Francis Harvey 
departed as Secretary of the Army at a ceremony at Fort Myer, VA. 
Farewell ceremonies are often held at Fort Myer for soldiers of all 
ranks as they pass the torch to those men and women who will take over 
the responsibility of defending our Nation. The ceremony at Fort Myer 
honors their contributions and symbolizes the continuity between the 
past and the future. Secretary of the Army Harvey's service as 
Secretary of the Army was during a particularly crucial time for the 
Army. The Nation is at war against a dangerous and determined enemy. 
That war is of long duration, and the Army has borne the brunt of the 
fighting. The nature of this war, and the demands it has made on the 
Army, has resulted in great challenges for the senior leadership of the 
Army. Secretary Harvey accepted those challenges and worked with skill, 
determination, and honor to overcome them and keep our Army strong and 
ready today and to prepare it for tomorrow. Many of us in Congress know 
of and appreciated Secretary Harvey's commitment to the Army. But the 
person who is best able to tell of his accomplishments and his 
contribution to the Army is his close partner, the Chief of Staff of 
the Army. I am pleased to commend to my colleagues GEN Peter 
Schoomaker's speech thanking Secretary Harvey for his service to the 
Army. I bid Secretary Harvey farewell, thank him for his service to our 
country, and wish him all the best in the next chapter of his life.
  The material follows.

                      Speech by General Schoomaker

       Secretary and Mrs. Harvey, Deputy Secretary England, 
     Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Pace . . . Sergeant 
     Major of the Army Preston, other distinguished guests and 
     friends. Today Dr. Fran Harvey, our 19th Secretary of the 
     Army, departs our ranks but not our hearts. I am grateful to 
     have had the privilege and honor to serve by his side. When 
     Secretary Harvey was sworn-in back in November 2004 I 
     provided him a photo of a Soldier on bended knee in Iraq 
     carrying an almost unbearable load.
       I explained to Secretary Harvey that this picture should 
     serve to remind him--that like all leaders across our Army--
     everything he does will impact our Soldiers on the ground. 
     Our challenge, therefore, was to lighten the load our 
     Soldiers bear (in other words, to ``take things out of their 
     rucksacks,'' as we like to say).
       While he has kept it on his desk for two years let me tell 
     you in no uncertain terms Secretary Harvey needed no such 
     reminder. He was quick to state, and truly believed, that 
     ``Soldiers are and will always be our centerpiece. Their 
     efforts are the reason the Army is one of the most respected 
     organizations in America.''
       This conviction was evident in everything I saw him do as 
     our Secretary. Everything was based on his passionate concern 
     for the Army, its Soldiers, their families, and our Army 
     Civilians.
       This concern is reflected in the other picture on his desk, 
     one of two ladies, the mothers of two fallen Soldiers. That 
     picture serves as a reminder of the sacrifices our Soldiers 
     and their families are making. His dedication was reflected 
     in his personal and professional commitment to ``provide a 
     quality of life for our Soldiers that matched the quality of 
     service they provide to the Nation.''
       And he has worked tirelessly to do just that. Because of 
     his vision, his dedication, and his unfailing commitment he 
     departs our ranks today knowing with absolute certainty that 
     our Soldiers and their families as well as the Army Civilians 
     who support them have benefited greatly from his service. I 
     have no doubt that our Army is far better today than we were 
     just two years ago
       Our progress in many cases is the direct result of his 
     determination to stand-up to those who challenged the basis 
     of our requirements to properly support our Soldiers.
       He also inspired us to think differently and far more 
     strategically about how we ``do business.'' Without doubt 
     these qualities are a testament to the unique brand of 
     values-based, principle-centered leadership he demonstrated 
     with absolute conviction in his service as Secretary of the 
     Army.
       In short his impact on our Army has been profound. He has 
     moved us significantly forward in our collective and 
     continuing efforts to meet the needs of the Nation that we 
     serve.
       My remarks will be brief because you came to hear Secretary 
     Harvey, not me. We've convened today to honor him and his 
     family and bear witness to the sacrifice of our Soldiers and 
     the contributions our Army is making worldwide in defense of 
     the Nation.
       We often overlook the fact that to perform his duties as 
     our Secretary . . . he has endured his own experience in 
     ``family separation'' by being apart from Mary his gracious 
     wife of over forty years for more than twenty-eight months. 
     While we could spend the remainder of today highlighting 
     Secretary Harvey's achievements neither he nor you would be 
     very appreciative of ``the mother of all laundry lists.'' So 
     I will briefly highlight three broad but interrelated 
     touchstones: People, Resources, and Teamwork.
       Dr. Harvey's commitment to people has enabled us to sustain 
     the overall health and viability of our All-Volunteer force--
     which is now being tested for the first time in a protracted 
     conflict. His actions have enabled us to achieve 
     unprecedented levels of both recruitment and retention. 
     ``People are the Army'' and we recruit more of them each

[[Page 8761]]

     year than all of the other Services combined. In Fiscal Year 
     2006 the Active component had its best year in nine years 
     recruiting over 80,000 men and women. The National Guard had 
     its best year in thirteen years recruiting over 69,000 
     people; finally, the Reserves achieved over a 25 percent 
     increase from the previous year bringing in 25,000 new 
     people.
       His accomplishments on behalf of the great people in our 
     organization have been a logical continuation of his 
     voluntary service to the Army as a key member of the Army 
     Science Board while a private citizen over many years.
       They include: Improvements which enabled us to meet our 
     goals for recruiting and retaining our All Volunteer force; 
     decisions and support to provide for better access and better 
     management of our vital National Guard and Army Reserve units 
     not as individuals but instead as whole cohesive units fully 
     prepared and ready to perform their duties amidst new 
     challenges; and decisions and support to grow our force--in a 
     extraordinary way--to better meet our needs and to alleviate, 
     over time, current levels of stress on our Soldiers and their 
     families.
       We now have dramatic enhancements to ``push the envelope'' 
     increasing our ability to protect the force. These include 
     considerable improvements affecting all elements of the 
     Department to improve leadership, training, education, and 
     career opportunities for our civilians and our civilian 
     executives and equally impressive improvements in finding 
     ways--to change our culture--to drive out waste and improve 
     both efficiency and effectiveness. In this regard he thought 
     and acted unequivocally like a Soldier.
       He was driven by a single unifying purpose: to free human 
     and financial resources for more compelling wartime and 
     operational needs. Properly focusing activity and obtaining 
     resources to enable that activity are core tasks for senior 
     leaders. No one that I have served with in public or private 
     life does it better than Dr. Fran Harvey. Our budgeted 
     dollars for Fiscal 2008, due to his personal efforts, are the 
     highest in our history--which exemplify his leadership in 
     this regard. Working in full collaboration with me and all of 
     ``the right people'' he quickly established a strategic 
     framework that reflected our most urgent challenges and 
     ongoing initiatives. He then set out in a determined yet 
     pragmatic fashion to obtain the resources required to support 
     our Army to ensure it was fully prepared to serve at the 
     forefront of the war on terror and to execute the full range 
     of its other worldwide missions.
       Creating relevant, ready forces is the surest measure of 
     effective Army leadership. Since 2004 sixty-four (64) Brigade 
     Combat Teams have been converted or are in the process of 
     being converted; 148 multifunctional and functional support 
     Brigades have been converted, or are in the process of being 
     converted, to the modular design force.
       I won't dwell on numbers. While important they do little to 
     tell this story. I will highlight instead the personal 
     courage and integrity he demonstrated in challenging the 
     bureaucracy, changing perceptions, and setting us on a path 
     to get our resources and our requirements in balance. His 
     leadership proved to be decisive in this regard. Not only did 
     he establish a methodology (demonstrating why he has been so 
     successful in ``Corporate America'') to explain why our costs 
     have increased in recent years, he also promoted 
     understanding and acceptance at the highest levels of our 
     Government for our most compelling needs. We will rely upon 
     Fran Harvey's example ``to do what is right'' for many years 
     to come.
       He also inspired all of us in the Army to achieve more--in 
     what we do personally . . . and in what we expect to be 
     delivered by others. In this regard . . . two of his deep 
     seated beliefs will remain embedded in the culture which 
     shapes and characterizes our Army: ``In the bottom line it's 
     all about `cost, schedule, and performance' plain and simple 
     and what gets measured gets done.''
       His efforts have dramatically improved the quality and 
     openness of our working relationships within the Department 
     of Defense and with the many stakeholders upon whom we depend 
     for resources and support. In a word, he is a genuine ``team 
     player'' who has engendered unprecedented levels of teamwork 
     which will benefit our Soldiers. Our personal working 
     relationship is the result of our mutual decision to operate 
     from the same playbook. And that playbook was based on a 
     couple of key fundamentals. We agreed that the door between 
     our offices would always remain open and that our 
     relationship would be based upon one core belief--that 
     Soldiers would remain the center of all that we do.
       Over the past two years we've crossed that threshold that 
     used to be blocked many times a day. Opening the door between 
     our offices not only opened lines of communication, it also 
     enabled progress in three other very important ways: First, 
     as an outgrowth of the extremely close partnership between 
     Secretary Harvey and me we set the tone for a strong civil-
     military team at the top of the Department. Second, we were 
     unified in our commitment to a single Vision--the Army 
     Vision--that centers, as it must, on the great Soldiers who 
     fill our ranks and the dedicated Army Civilians who support 
     them to generate and sustain our All-Volunteer force. Third, 
     teamwork and a shared vision for the future enabled our 
     entire team to better articulate and defend the Army's most 
     compelling needs.
       I'm convinced that these positive developments played a 
     vital role in dramatically changing our current and projected 
     resource posture and ultimately to better provide for our 
     Soldiers and to better accomplish what the Nation demands 
     from its Army. So as we farewell our 19th Secretary I say so 
     long to a visionary, a ``true leader'' and a teammate with 
     whom I have been enormously proud to serve. He has led the 
     Army to unprecedented levels of civil-military cooperation, 
     fostered open communication, and mutual respect (even in 
     times of disagreement) all in the interest of Soldiers, 
     families, and the Army mission--to conduct prompt, sustained 
     combat and stability operations on land. I have mentioned 
     just a few of the seminal achievements that will endure and 
     continue to bear fruit long after Dr. Harvey departs our 
     ranks today. Selfless leadership is that rare and wonderful 
     commodity of which every nation possesses too little. Its 
     presence is unmistakable, its impact enduring.
       We are fortunate to have the continuity of vision and 
     direction that Acting Secretary Geren now represents. Sir, we 
     welcome your leadership and your experience as a Member of 
     Congress and within the office of the Secretary of Defense. 
     We know that you'll lead and care for our Soldiers and 
     families and that you're going to keep us on course.
       Secretary Harvey, Sir, thank you for your service for your 
     friendship and for living the Army Values and for honoring 
     our Warrior Ethos. Because of your leadership we're ``Army 
     Strong'' and as our song says we'll ``keep rolling along.'' 
     Together we wish you, Mary, Francis, John and the rest of 
     your family Godspeed.
       Army Strong!

                          ____________________