Military Department Personnel Chiefs: Personnel Posture

The subcommittee for will come to order. I ask unanimous consent that the chair be authorized to declare a recess at any time without objection, so ordered. Want to welcome everybody here. Thank you so much for coming to the posture hearing on the Military Personnel Subcommittee. First and foremost, we want to thank everyone that wears the uniform for our republic, and we want to pay a special tribute to those lives that were lost in the recent conflict. There is no greater sacrifice, and I loved the poster when I was served all those years ago, now I can say all those decades ago. That all gave some and some gave all, and some just gave all, and we want to make sure that we know that our work here is for them. Every policy we examine in this room to how we recruit, how we retain, how we take care of the families and either it is either going to strengthen or weaken our force, and we owe it to everyone to give them our best work. And today's hearing is about the people who build and sustain our force. There is no greater asset than and our greatest natural resources is our people. And whether in how do we recruit, how does a 22-year-old that may have or at a crossroads in their life, why do they enter the military? How do we attract them to do so? How do we attract a mid-career NCO to stay instead of leaving and getting more, you know, maybe more money in the civilian sector? And then how do we take care of our military families so they are a cohesive unit and a team and they want to make this this life a career. And the five witnesses before us today are architects of those decisions across every branch of the military. Their portfolios touch everything from accessions to assignments to benefits to career development, and the choices made in those lanes will determine the readiness of our forces that we send into the next fight. And I want to reiterate my appreciation for the hard work of every one of you dedicating your lives to this republic. And the commitment that you have also in recruiting, because we were in a crisis a couple years ago. There were things that sometimes when I'm sure my colleagues will have their friends and they'll ask, what keeps you up at night? I'm sure you have friends as well what keeps you up and one of the things that kept me up at night a few years back was this year over year missing the mark with recruiting, because retention can only fix that and hold that for so long, and then we need new blood, we need new folks. Fortunately, we turned that corner. I think it is very imperative for us to determine why we turned that corner. I know the Marine Corps, special nod to y'all that you kept hitting those numbers. But the other services were having kind of struggles, but we don't have that right now and we do we want to keep it that way. We don't want to go back to where we were we were worried and losing sleep. So we made a promise to young Americans when they do join the formations that we're going to keep up our end of the bargain and take care of them. I just did a visit to Fort Jackson and saw some of the I mean, we got battalions with buildings that were built when LBJ was president and they're still using them and there is struggles there. And then we got brand new ones that opened six months ago, and you'd way rather be in those barracks for the 10-week stint hitch than anywhere else. So we're going to discuss that and see how we can better help getting some needed funding, quite frankly, for those buildings so LBJ buildings can be retired. That would be kind of nice. But that means that this subcommittee will be pressing, you know, hard, I think in a in a bipartisan fashion to focus on quality of life, and it is not a soft topic and it does affect readiness and retention as well. And a service member can't if they can't get to a doctor's appointment or their spouse is having those issues or they can't find a job when they do a PCS move, if there is a child that's in a year-long CDC waitlist or on that, that's a service member, that's stress, and that math doesn't really to add up well for us. So these witnesses here in front of us control these policies and that math, and specifically I want to answer today questions about the dining facility in the barracks. I did go and visit Fort Jackson's dining facilities as well and it is a bit of a challenge, and I did ask the not only the soldiers in the recruits in training, but also the NCOs, what's the food really like? Do you like it offline? I'm not going to, you know, share I I protect my sources, okay? And they were honest, they weren't all that enthused about the the chow to be honest. So we got to look at that. And then healthcare and MHS staffing has declined and we'd like to see answers to where the where those gaps were. And on childcare, the CDC waitlists remain one of the consistent complaints that we hear most from military families. Honestly, that goes way back too, that goes back into when I was serving in the 90s. And I want to see what we can do there. And on spouse employment, PCS moves cost a military spouse sometimes their careers, and that cost shows up in retention. So the policies and programs that these officers oversee profoundly affect whether a service member and their families decide to stay, and that is the subject of today's hearing. But before we get to that, I want to thank the service members themselves again, active duty, reserves, and the Guard, we don't want to overlook them. And you know, y'all go into harm's way and you are our our heroes, and I like the focus of this nation after 9/11. September 11th was arguably one of the worst days in our history, but September 12th was one of the best because we were so unified like I'd never seen, and we had an acute appreciation of what the military does. And I'm glad to see 25 years hence that that is still pretty much a focus, because I see those young military members in the airports and I see strangers just walk right up to that 18 and 19-year-old and it warms my heart when they thank them. Thank you for your service, and you can see that person, that young man or woman, they stand a little taller after that kind of an interaction, and that was sorely missing years and years ago. So that's something that has been a positive. So I would like to welcome our witnesses. We have Lieutenant General Brian Eifler. We have Vice Admiral Jeffrey, Admiral help me with your name.

They say let me try it, ready? Czerewko.

Perfect. Boom. And we have Lieutenant General Karen Miller, Caroline Miller, thank you for being Caroline Miller, very nice. We also have General William Bowers, there you are, sir. And we have Ms. Katharine Kelley as well. So before hearing for our witnesses, let me offer the ranking member, Ranking Member Houlahan, an opportunity to make some opening remarks.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and it is a pleasure to be here and I want to foot stomp all of the things you've talked about in terms of the importance of quality of life and the various aspects that are critical to be able to make our men and women in uniform content and continuing in their service and their families as well, having come up as a kid in the a Navy brat, my dad wants me to say, and my mother as well, a Navy brat, and myself serving in the Air Force, these are very, very important subjects. But there are other important subjects as well that I want to make sure that we have the chance to make space for. Soldiers and sailors and marines, airmen, and of course guardians are engaged as we've mentioned in missions around the world. And whether they're conducting combat operations or delivering humanitarian assistance, they are to a person ready to respond to national security challenges around the world, and we ask a lot of them. We ask them to risk their lives to protect our country, and in turn we have to make sure that we have their backs as well and that we support their families too. And we, as mentioned before, don't always live up to that and we need to of course do better. I had a chance to speak with almost all of you earlier this week and it was really nice to have the chance to speak personally to each and every one of you, and also to hear that the services are indeed on track to meet those recruitment and retention goals. I am very happy to see proposed end strength increases across the board in the president's budget for fiscal year 2027. That being said, I am concerned about the continued politicization of service members by the Department of Defense leaders, and I come from, as I mentioned, a military family with several generations including myself where we opted to serve, and that exposure to a military lifestyle, as I've mentioned to some of you in our private meetings, is really decreasing across our nation. And parents and teachers and counselors and coaches are increasingly less and less willing to recommend military service to young people who are within their spheres of influence, and that's a problem that we need to solve. Whether it is the president using visits to military installations to promote candidates and his party, or allowing social media posts that are partisan and offensive by active duty service members working at the Pentagon, or unlawfully removing very well-qualified individuals from promotion cycles, all of these actions clearly lead to the erosion of trust and the trust that we have in our military. These actions will undoubtedly have a negative impact on our nation's youth and our nation's propensity to serve, and I'm really worried about how these kinds of events are affecting the overall morale of the force. I'm also very concerned that this administration continues to institute unnecessary and arguably discriminatory barriers to service that might prevent fully qualified and willing individuals from joining our military or from continuing in their service. From newly overly rigid grooming standards to the ever-changing fitness tests, rather than establishing obstacles to service, we should be ensuring that we are able to sustain the proposed military growth and look for ways to widen the pool of applicants from which we can draw our all-volunteer force from. We have also heard many times that we recruit the we recruit the service member but we retain the family. So it is imperative that we continue the work, as mentioned, that we already started on the bipartisan quality of life panel. Congress is closely monitoring the implementation of that panel's recommendations that were made into law, but we have to continue to work on improving areas, as mentioned, like food security or housing, childcare, or access to healthcare. The soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and guardians who serve today have very different needs than those who served in the past. The percentage of women who serve has increased to 17 percent, and nearly a third of our active duty force has children. More than ever, the military must be able to provide services to members with affordable and convenient childcare. However, childcare staffing shortages have resulted in untenable waitlists that negatively impact readiness. Moreover, we cannot lose sight of the impact that current events are having on our military. Finally, the continued and indiscriminate attacks of the Department of Defense on civilians is an issue that will have a lasting negative effect on the military. Yet while the Department of Defense remains under a hiring freeze, it has directed the services to establish strategic hiring committees. And these committees are responsible for managing the exemption process to the hiring freeze, to include which categories of positions the services can hire. I'm interested in hearing from our witness about how that process is going, whether it is working or not, and the impacts it is having on bringing critical civilians on board and keeping them there. Civilians are part of the total force, and they staff many, many essential support programs for our military families. Bureaucratic delays and incompetence in implementing flawed personnel policies have left military personnel performing sometimes two or three jobs while the positions are being routed through strategic hiring committees. Mr. Chairman, I truly thank you for having this hearing today so that we can discuss these and other important issues of personnel policies and their effect on the lives of our service members. I thank you to the witnesses again for being here, and to Lieutenant General Miller, thank you for your dedicated 34 years of service and congratulations on your upcoming retirement, well deserved.

Amen. Amen and I think you and you must have come to the military when you were about 10. So thank you, my good friend from Pennsylvania. Each witness will have the opportunity to present his or her testimony and each member will have an opportunity to question witnesses for five minutes. We respectfully ask that the witnesses keep their remarks to three minutes or less, and your written comments and statements will be made a part of the hearing record. With that, Lieutenant General Eifler, you may make your opening statement. Thank you.

Chairman Fallon, Ranking Member Houlahan, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of the United States Army. Also behind me here is Sergeant Major Commons, an HR warrior that is highly respected in her community, both by her superiors and peers alike. For over 250 years, the American soldier has been the bedrock of our nation's defense, and it is an honor to represent the nearly one million soldiers, civilians, and families who comprise our force. The Army stands ready to defend our nation. Army can provide combat power anywhere in the world to protect American and allied interests. Currently, the Army has more than 108,000 soldiers deployed or forward-postured across 140 countries. As we speak, there are over 14,000 soldiers in the Middle East in harm's way as part of Epic Fury, proving that our Army remains lethal, adaptive, cohesive, and ready. During World War II, when asked by a general from the German army to show his credentials as a general, the 8th Infantry Division commander simply pointed to his rugged soldiers and said, "These are my credentials." That statement and gesture remains true today. Soldiers are our credentials. And the best way to take care of them is providing tough, realistic training that mirrors the rigors of combat. Your unwavering support enables us to do that. Recruiting will remain a priority. The Army exceeded its FY 25 goal with over 62,000 new soldiers and is on track to meet the FY 26 goal of 61,500 without sacrificing standards. This success is a direct result of our innovations and investments in opportunities such as the Future Soldier Prep Course. Additionally, the implementation of a professional recruiting force with a new career field and equipping them with modern tools to connect with the next generation of soldiers, it is proving to be the path towards success. Our commitment to our people extends beyond recruitment. We are retaining our talented soldiers by offering flexible career paths and using data to manage our force, which led us to achieve 108 percent of our retention goal in this last year. In addition to job satisfaction, we know the high quality of life is one of the main factors when soldiers choose to stay in the Army and build meaningful careers. When we take care of their families, our soldiers are more likely to commit to the Army for the long haul. We are improving their quality of life by addressing housing issues, including a comprehensive review of all barracks and a new privatized barracks pilot program that's being tested right now. Furthermore, we are revolutionizing soldier dining with campus-style dining, ensuring our soldiers have access to nutritious food that fuels their readiness. Again, thank you for your continued support as we transform, support ongoing operations as the foundation of the joint force, and improve how we care for our most important asset, our people. This we'll defend.

Thank you, sir. Chair now recognizes Admiral Czerewko. Thank you, sir. Chair now recognizes Admiral Czerewko.

Good afternoon, Chairman Fallon, Ranking Member Houlahan, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. It's my honor to join you today, also with my fleet. Good afternoon, Chairman Fallon, Ranking Member Houlahan, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. It's my honor to join you today, also with my Fleet Master Chief Jay Walker, who is the voice of your United States Navy sailors. Especially on behalf of our most vital assets, our sailors, civilian personnel, as well as their families. Your bipartisan support is the bedrock of our success, and it allows us to forge exceptional leaders and cultivate unbeatable teams for our nation's needs. This subcommittee's work on the FY 26 NDAA was instrumental in this effort. It provides the authority to build and maintain a lethal and survivable Navy. Earlier this month, I marked 250 days as the Chief of Naval Personnel, and I've learned something new each one of those days. This is an echo of the Navy's 250 years of service to our Constitution and its nation. I am honored to represent not just the 404,427 sailors serving today, but every sailor who came before us. And also the civilian workforce that provides continuity and deep expertise. Those prior warfighters are our legacy. These new warfighters provide our competitive advantage. My job is to continue to recruit the best our nation has to offer, to deliver training that forges mastery, and retain our best and brightest through a system built on merit. And finally, to empower every sailor with clear and intuitive personnel policies. I take this job very personally, and I owe it to every sailor to ensure they have overwhelming advantage in any fight. Under the Sailor First mindset, we are using data-driven, fleet-aligned approaches to modernize the sailor's experience. This isn't about incremental change, it's a fundamental shift in how we operate. We are building a system that anticipates risks, forecasts needs, and achieves the agility required for the future. We are upgrading our talent management systems and processes to remove burdens that distract from the fight. To date, we've grown the force significantly, exceeding our recruiting goals with quality sailors year over year. We are using career training continuums to invest strategically in our sailors, fostering a culture of continuous learning. Our standards are unwavering, and every sailor who graduates is disciplined, qualified, and ready to contribute from day one. We are gaining a more experienced and more lethal force. Last year, we retained over 37,000 sailors, contributing significantly to our end-strength growth. This year, we are on track to do even better. And our success is driven by personal engagement. Our key full-power Navy initiative engages sailors at career decision points, and those direct efforts contributed 40 percent to our overall end-strength growth last year. To sustain the momentum, we're modernizing the infrastructure that supports our people. We've instrumented our processes, and we measure daily performance. We're continuing to refine and surgically target our recruitment and retention efforts. Across the entire personnel enterprise, we are fortifying our naval warfighting ethos. I look forward to the discussion.

Thank you, sir. Chair now recognizes General Miller.

Chairman Fallon, Ranking Member Houlahan, and distinguished members of this subcommittee, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to represent our airmen and their families today. I too have my senior enlisted advisor, who is the number one enlisted member of all of the A1 enterprise. He's new to our family, so that's kind of fun. But anyway, he's doing great. As the Department of the Air Force postures for an era of strategic competition, our most significant and enduring competitive advantage remains our people. We cannot choose between people and platforms. We need both. We exist to fly, fight, and win, none of which is possible without the dedication and talent of the men and women who volunteer to serve. My testimony today will focus on three key areas: force management strategy, investments in airmen and families, and managing talent for the future fight. I am proud to report that once again, we met our recruiting goals for FY 25 and are on track to do so for FY 26. Our focus is now expanding to the other side of the equation, retaining the incredible talent we bring into the service. The FY 27 budget request for an end-strength increase of 8,900 for the Air Force is a critical step, allowing us to relieve stress on undermanned career fields and invest in the capabilities needed to deter and, where necessary, defeat our adversaries. We continue to use every available tool to stabilize the force and address critical skill gaps. A few examples include monetary incentives like the aviation bonus program and reintroduction of warrant officers, both are proving successful. We also must continue to invest in quality-of-life initiatives for all our airmen and families. This is an investment in lethality. An airman concerned about his or her personal or financial challenges cannot fully focus on the mission. The proposed pay raise, coupled with our efforts to improve spouse employment opportunities, directly address the financial pressures on our families. Additionally, all airmen must have access to affordable, quality childcare. We continue to aggressively attack our unmet childcare need, currently around 3,000. I'm also keenly aware that our suicide numbers are not at our desired goal, which is zero. Our commitment to our airmen is to eliminate the corrosive nature of suicide. Currently, we've dedicated additional resources to prevention, intervention, and, when necessary, postvention. Likewise, we are wholly committed to eliminating sexual assault and harassment. Early data suggest we are making progress with a 12 percent decrease from our last data analysis. We are managing our talent to win a complex security environment. A key part of this is our culture of fitness. This is not a rebranding, it is a fundamental modernization of our standards. For our combat-focused airmen, we have demanding mission-specific and gender-neutral fitness tests. For the entire force, we moved to a science-based model to assess year-round health, not just test-day performance. Chairman Fallon, Ranking Member Houlahan, we are committed to building a lethal, resilient force capable of defending our nation. By taking care of our airmen and their families, we are building a force that truly embodies peace through strength. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you very much, General. Chair now recognizes General Bowers.

Chairman Fallon, Ranking Member Houlahan, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify here today. As the Deputy Commandant for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, along with my senior enlisted advisor, Sergeant Major Rife sitting behind me, our team's mission is taking care of our most important asset, the individual Marine. We're responsible for every Marine from the day they earn the title to the day they transition to civilian life. Getting that right is how we ensure the Marine Corps remains the world's premier expeditionary force in readiness. We do it by following a simple but powerful principle: mission first, people always. We seek to always say yes to Marines whenever we can. We create and implement policies that help us to attract, inspire, develop, and retain the world's most disciplined, professional, and lethal warfighters. And the plan's working. Recruiting has been extremely successful. We met our mission last year and will do it again this year, and we'll do it while maintaining our high standards. Right now, we have thousands of qualified young Americans in our delayed entry program waiting and working hard for their chance to earn the title United States Marine. In today's landscape, that is a powerful testament to the enduring draw of our Corps for our nation's youth. We are also having historic retention success. Once a young man or woman of character earns the title Marine, they want to remain a Marine. We have implemented a host of important talent management initiatives that are benefiting Marines and the Marine Corps with higher predictability, performance, career satisfaction, and retention. Looking ahead, our focus remains clear. We must continue to modernize our information technology systems to make smarter and better decisions for our people. This will help sustain our incredible recruiting and retention momentum. And most importantly, we will always look for ways to support the quality of life for our Marines and their families so they can excel, both personally and professionally. It's an honor to serve alongside all of you as we work together to fulfill this vital duty that's entrusted to us. We're committed to being responsible stewards of our nation's finest people and of the resources and authorities you provide. Thank you for the opportunity. Semper Fidelis.

Thank you, General. Chair now recognizes Ms. Kelley.

Chairman Fallon, Ranking Member Houlahan, and distinguished members of this subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and represent the Space Force. Our mission is clear: to secure our nation's interests in, from, and to space. And today that mission is more urgent than ever. In the six years since our establishment as a lean, specialized service, space has only become more important to us, to our allies, our adversaries, and the global economy. A domain that was once accessible by only a few is now accessible by a wide range of nations, subnational groups, and private industry. As the space domain becomes increasingly complex and congested, the Space Force must continue to grow in response to these expanding challenges, not just in terms of overall strength, but by continuing to innovate how we recruit, develop, and importantly, retain our guardians. I'm very proud to report that we have met our recruiting goals for this year already and we're on track to continue to advance recruiting for FY 27. We're also exploring how to accept more uniformed guardians into our training pipelines while continuing to focus on shortening the critical time to hire for our civilian guardians, who are just as critical to our workforce. Our service is continually improving training and development, ensuring that guardians fully understand the operational environment while optimizing our acquisition workforce at the same time. This is why we are enhancing overall enlisted and officer training and building career paths for both military and civilians alike. Our ability to deliver combat capability requires all to be trained and ready. The systems we field today will only be as effective as the people who operate and sustain them. That is why we are continuing our focus on retention as well and doing so through deliberate talent management. Thanks to your support, we are able to leverage authorities for special pay and incentives, implementing the Personnel Management Act, integrating both full and part-time work roles in the service. Finally, we know that stability and quality of life for guardians and their families are critical to retention. Our service does not solely operate on traditional deployment cycles, but many of our teams are operating on a constant operational cadence. Guardians perform their mission from remote and austere locations, and to support them, we are focused on quality-of-life issues including expansion of our resilience teams, access to after-hours childcare, innovative ways to manage and measure health and fitness, including mental health and resiliency, and ensuring guardians have the support they need. Chairman Fallon, Ranking Member Houlahan, and distinguished members, thank you for your steadfast commitment to the United States Space Force and the guardians who serve our nation, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you very much. Chair now recognizes myself for five minutes of questions. I do want to make a quick editorial comment. Visiting Fort Jackson, went to Family Day. 6,000 people in the stands, families, friends. 1,100 of our newest soldiers about to come out, and I noted, I whispered to the colonel I was with, you all should have them come out of the woods. And that is exactly what they did after they popped smoke. It was so invigorating and I thought to myself at that very moment, every single member of the Congress that is on Armed Services should see that. It was exhilarating. It was just so unique. And then later that day was able to see 67, I think it was 67 brand new soldiers become brand new American citizens at a naturalization ceremony. And me and Joe Wilson, it was his district, got to meet every single newly minted American and got to tell them right now you are the newest American in history. It was just a really special day. And then of course we went to the DFAC and then we went to some of the facilities that need upgrading and whatnot, but that was the highlight and I really would recommend if you have the time to do that. I look forward to doing that with the Air Force and going up to Great Lakes with the Navy and also definitely go to Parris Island and San Diego and seeing the same sometime later this year. Want to talk about recruiting because it did keep me and many other members up at night and we did turn around those recruiting numbers and I wanted to ask each one of you starting with General Eifler, why? And was it, there was a dramatic recovery, particularly with the Army. Why do you think that was? I suspect it is various different factors, but I want to begin withouts and end in certainties and I do not want to speculate, but I would really like to have that discussion and then also look at some data as well. General.

Yeah, thanks Ranking Member and it is always inspiring to see those graduations. It takes you to another level and invite everybody here to go see those. I am sure the other services as well. It does remind you what we are doing this for and as just as much as when I go by Arlington Cemetery every day. And so I appreciate you visiting and seeing that and getting inspired by it. And we owe those soldiers to take care of them like you said as you saw the LBJ barracks. We need to do a better job of that. For recruiting, sir, I think one of the biggest things is we did is we took our eye off the ball for years. And I talked about a little bit about this last year. We just did not focus on it. We rested on laurels and over the years recruiting was going down and then it plummeted. So we had to refocus. We had to refocus how we recruit and who we select as recruiters, professionalizing the recruiting force. We invested a lot in making sure we select the right people to do it. Not everybody does that well and so we had to assess how we did that and make sure we are giving them the training. In some cases last year we created a new MOS, a new specialty in the warrant officers so that they could go do this full-time. We used, we had them go to other organizations like Amazon and see how they do it. Just to get more up to date in some of the things that maybe we just have been lazy quite frankly to update. And so that coupled with things like innovative approaches like the Future Soldier Prep Course where we are bringing in thousands of soldiers that were not meeting the standards and wanted to serve but were just failing to meet the standards. And so going into that course and being able to have a 93 percent graduation rate. That is another one I would love for you to see because you are going to be motivated that these people that become, that want to become soldiers more than anything else and for whatever reason they did not do well in high school or they were not as active as they need to be get a second chance. And that, those two things have been very leading to most of the success we have had.

No, thank you. Admiral.

Thank you, sir. A couple of years ago I was the commander of Naval Education and Training Command and inherited recruiting as one of my commands. And I will tell you that in 22 and 23 it was clear we had forgotten the basics. One of the key things we figured out was daily visualization of our performance. Being able to know what exactly needs to be done each day, Monday through Friday, that will result in a contract of a willing American young man or young woman. One of the other institutions we brought into mix is a Recruiting Operations Center which gave an enterprise view across the entire nation and allowed us to port resources and make decisions at speed. We grew the recruiting force and also met our overall contracting mission in 24 and then raised the numbers again. So in 24 we were looking at 40,600. We raised it, excuse me, shipped 44,068 with some outstanding performance by recruiting nation. We have got career recruiting force that is working great and our ability to get to yes to a sailor and bring them into the organization is what is helping us close the deal with these wonderful young men and women. This year we are shipping 45,000 and I predict we are going to achieve that goal because we are at least 2,500 ahead of last year's record pace. Thank you.

Wonderful. Thank you. General Miller.

Yes, sir. So we did many of the similar things, but I will tell you two areas in which we really focused on is we noted during COVID that we had our touchpoints with recruiting candidates was very high, sky high. But what we found when we looked at the data was that we could not close the deal unless there was a face-to-face interaction. And so that was pretty telling because everyone is like oh all those social media platforms, which we still use to get our message out, but it is really the recruiter on the ground going and talking to the individual and saying this is a perfect value proposition. So we did that. We also met the population where they were. And so there are certain populations in the United States that have no interaction with any military members. They just do not. They do not even think it is an option. So a couple of initiatives there. We did a the general officers, we would go out to different locations and introduce the recruiters. But the other thing was really getting out there and getting after the population that did not even know that this was an opportunity for them. So that was really helpful. And then we did some monetary incentives, initial enlisted bonuses, and looked at having an opportunity for the airmen that were coming in to select their first base. So all of that together really has turned it around and right now we are sitting in our DEP almost 20,000 people. And so three or four years ago we were down to like eight, nothing. So we have really turned it around and we are on a glide slope to actually exceed by 4,000 if we have the appropriations to pay for it this year.

Thank you. General Bowers, you get to do a victory lap because you guys always hit your goals. So why did you do that?

Chairman Fallon, we are not complacent. The Marine Corps competes aggressively in every zip code for the best talent our country has to offer. We assign our best Marines to recruiting duty, top to bottom, officer and enlisted, and it is ingrained in the culture of the Corps. If you look at the senior leadership of the Marine Corps, the current Commandant of the Marine Corps, the SOUTHCOM Commander, the senior Marine commander in the Pacific, the commanders of all three Marine Expeditionary Forces and several other general officers served as recruiters and the Commandant just re-emphasized to us all last week at our executive offsite, you all are recruiters.

Amen. Ms. Kelley.

Thank you. Chairman, we are quite proud to have met our recruiting numbers as well in the Space Force, but we are on a growth trajectory. One thing I would say that is perhaps a little bit unique in our case, we consistently have way more demand than we actually have slots to bring people in. I think that is a signal of the interest that people have in this space industry and also in this space portfolio at large. But the challenge and where I think we are focusing with respect to recruiting is brand awareness and marketing. Our data shows us that the average American does not know that the Space Force is a real thing and a military branch of service that you can serve in. And so our focus right now continuing to grow off of our good recruiting numbers and position ourselves for growth is to make sure that the American public actually knows this is an option for your children, this is an option for you coming out of high school.

Thank you very much. And members, thank you for indulging. I was way over time. Chair now recognizes Ranking Member Houlahan.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you again to all of you all for your time yesterday and also today. And as I address some of my questions, please accept them in the spirit with which they are asked, which is to try to make our armed services more lethal and more effective. And so I am going to start with General Eifler with the recent news that two black and two female one-star, those who were to be promoted to one-star general officers were denied that promotion by Secretary Hegseth who unilaterally blocked that process. First of all, are you, do you have any idea why that happened?

Thanks Congresswoman. I do not know. I do not know. And as far as our process, we hold the boards, gets validated by the Secretary to make sure everything is done properly, and then he forwards the list.

And so what is the validated by the Secretary process? What does doing something properly mean?

Just to make sure that the board was conducted in accordance with our standards. And that is really it. So he does that. You know there is a vetting as you all know to make sure there is no negative or derogatory things that they have done and then it is forwarded. And that is the last time we see it.

So as I mentioned in my opening remarks, I grew up in a military family. My dad was retired as a captain in the Navy, a P-3 pilot, and I was kind of witness to his promotion board cycles. At one point I think he was one of the youngest captains ever in a peacetime Navy. And I just cannot even imagine a process where the vetting does not end up with a really good product, meaning people who are promoted because they deserve it and it is an enormously competitive process, especially for general officers. Is that correct?

That is correct, Ranking Member.

So how does four, how do four officers squeak through somehow with something that would be worthy of the Secretary of Defense knocking the decision out of the hands of the people who make these decisions?

I do not know the answer to that, Congresswoman. I just don't know.

And so what does this do to those who are O-6 and above or maybe even O-5 and above in terms of their understanding of their career path when something like this happens to derail the career of somebody that they perhaps knew or served with?

It questions. Makes you wonder because you don't know.

It makes you wonder what?

Well, what's, what, why?

Why did that happen? Yeah. And what did, what went wrong? And in addition, when we focus on merit, which I believe very strongly in a merit-based promotion system, when they've made it all the way through that merit-based process and been vetted at the end and then it's taken away from them, which I think is historically unprecedented, I think it can't but not cause pause in the general officer rank in terms of what's happening in their careers. Is that a fair statement?

I think that's fair.

Before I move on with the remainder of my time, this was a recent instance, but there's been close to a dozen incidents where sitting members of general officers have been relieved of their duty. Would love to hear from the Admiral and the Generals, were you friends with any of the people who experienced that when they were let go?

Ranking Member Houlahan, I was friends with a number of these officers and I consider them all best and fully qualified and vetted and ran through the system. They are lethal operators and quality human beings and we serve at the pleasure of the President, ma'am.

I very much respect that. It was how I was raised as well. But serving at the pleasure of the President implies that there's some sort of qualification that they don't have by which he decides or she decides that they are no longer useful. And as near as I can tell, to a person, none of those people has anybody identified what was the problem with those people. Is that a fair statement, General Miller?

Yes, ma'am. I think that several of the individuals that were removed from the Air Force, and the Chairman was an airman, there was no reason that was provided to us as to why they were removed. A lot of the discussion was that they decided to retire early. I don't know.

And what does that do to the morale in the Air Force amongst the general officers?

To be quite fair, it's challenging. We want to make sure that we have the best force and I've known several of them and I thought they were great leaders.

I appreciate your candor. And General, do you have anything to add to this conversation? Any ways that we might be able to correct for this so that we don't end up with more general officers being shown the door?

Ma'am, I have nothing to add from what my colleagues have said.

Thank you. I appreciate you. With what's left of my time, maybe a minute or so, I would love to talk again with General Eifler about the direct commissioning program, which my understanding is is focused on fields like cyber and logistics and artificial intelligence, things that we really need in our armed services. And can you explain briefly that program and how it's working and whether or not you feel like it's a program that should be replicated in other places?

Yes, thanks Ranking Member. Yes, I do think it's something that again, one of these our challenges is to bring in expertise and potentially not having to train them in that expertise. In other words, in society we have experts in data scientists and we've got cyber experts and people across the tech that have skills that we need. And so we are looking at how do we bring them in? How do they get interested in it first of all? How do we recruit that? Because that's a different recruit.

So do they go straight into service so to speak? Or do they do a basic training of one form?

They do have a basic training, but in some cases they're brought in as officers. I had a data scientist that works as a, he came in as a captain straight out. Phenomenal. And you know what he loves doing? His job. He loves doing data science. Amazing.

How refreshing.

What we're trying to do, quite honestly, one of our challenges is what we put them in our system and you all are familiar with the system. You're a pilot, you're supposed to go do these things. You're a one, you're supposed to go do these things. Well, you're a data scientist and we haven't mapped the career path.

Exactly.

And so we're fixing that and trying to make sure that when we, like we do with the medical, when you go to see a doctor about your knee, it's like, oh man, I just moved over from shoulders, this will be fun. No, you want someone that's been working on the knee their entire life. And much like the medical community, we want to keep the people and the expertise going in that position for as long as possible.

And carrying that with the one minute that I have left of my time, issues, places like cyber, places like AI, these kinds of really acute, exquisite skill sets that people have, there is some idea that we might need not just different MOSs and the ability to have this direct commissioning, but possibly a different service entirely. A cyber service of one form or another similar to the Space Service. Is this something that would make sense or have you given any thought to it, any of you, with the 30 seconds I have left to say yes, it's really important that we have a career path and a channel for general officers to see themselves in in something like the cyber service, General Eifler?

Yeah, I think something that that's something we've got to look at. Much like the birth of the Space Force, we've got to look at our capabilities to do that. We do need to have paths for all of these.

And General Miller?

Yes, ma'am. I think that we need to look at this as well. And we have done a few things in the Air Force to just keep them on their track so that there's that they have focus where they love their job.

Admiral?

Our cyber force is in the information warfare community and you want to be able to sustain that path forward. I believe when we've got nascent new growing technologies, how you grow that internally first to get a better understanding. We're currently conducting robust upskilling for AI and large language models and application development has been very empowering, but I'd love to continue to discuss this, ma'am.

I appreciate it. I've run out of time. I look forward to continued conversations with you three. Thank you and I yield.

Thank you. And now we're even on time by the way. Chair now recognizes my good friend from Virginia, Congresswoman Kiggans.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thanks to our panelists for joining us today. It's good to see all of you and thank you for our service to our great nation. I'm glad to hear the good news about meeting our recruitment goals and I wanted to focus a little more on retention. But before we do that, can I just have each of you if you could each pick one thing that maybe Congress could do when we think about growth and how we can grow even those numbers? I want to take a little bit of credit for some of the meeting some of the recruitment goals because of the bipartisan quality of life work that we did last Congress. That was awesome. If you haven't read our book, I know our staff brought copies, but we're really proud of that work that we did. So what's the one thing that maybe each branch of service you're asked from us, General Eifler?

I would say one that maybe it could speak on behalf of everybody is timely, accurate, and predictable sustained funding. And I know that's not necessarily the purview of this committee, but that's something that desperately we need.

Representative Kiggans, good to see you. Thank you, ma'am. I'm going to go for two real quick before you cut off my mic, but the great compensation so we can have that comparison with the future for these sailors when they're at their decision points. And because we are growing so robustly, 10,000 last year, projected 12,000 this year, our unaccompanied housing in general all our facilities are under stress because they're full. So continued support for that would be excellent.

Okay. Great.

Yes, I would also echo, I concur with them, but I would also say medical ability for our families to get care in CONUS and overseas.

Yes, ma'am. Predictable, timely funding is important and the emphasis on quality of life and everything that we do to make life better for our families. Service members serve, families sacrifice, and recognizing their service is important. Thank you.

Thank you.

Ma'am, I would completely agree with everything that my colleagues have said. I would only add that getting the word about out about the public service that you can be a part of as America's youth coming from Congress is very powerful rather than just from the services. So anything we can do to amplify that message of serving and serving honorably in your country will help all of us continue the momentum that we have.

Agree. Agree. And I like seeing the even BlueForge and buildsubs.com and I mean there's some great even Army-Navy game time, you know, and all the ads and there's some great pride and patriotism things that I think we do. We've got America's 250th birthday, so maybe that can be another place that we can really work to to advertise and sell the military. I want to focus for a minute on the Navy side just because that's my district, that's my background. Special thank you, Admiral, thank you to maybe very very few of you know and Admiral has children, I'm always proud that I have children who serve, but he has eight children, six of whom serve. I'm always proud that I have just one or two. So thank you for your family service. And they're the people that you should ask, you know, when when we look at what are recruitment and retention problems, why why do they and their friends, that's because I I rely on my son to tell me and his friends, why are you joining our military, but why are you staying or why are you leaving? And I'm wondering just Navy specific because that's my district in Hampton Roads, Virginia's Second District, if you can specifically tell me which enlisted rate and then which restricted line officer designation has the lowest rate of retention? Do you know offhand?

Ma'am, I do not at this time to come back with you, but from the officer side to the enlisted side I do not. I would suspect it's our highly sought up civilian comparison ratings like cyber etc. But from the officer unrestricted line, naval aviators.

Okay. That's a that's a challenge, ma'am. And I'd like to focus on that for a minute because we sat last time we one of the last times we met as a committee and we had the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower and Reserve Secretary Coleman was here. And to listen to what he told me when he recently had visited VFA-106, which is our F-18 fleet replacement squadron at our East Coast Master Jet Base in my district. To listen to the stories that he sounded, I'm usually the broken record up here talking about why we, you know, have to do better with infrastructure and what our hangars look like and what type of aircraft. But for to have him say to us, you know, these these kids join the Navy to they thought they were joining an elite fighting force and they showed up to hangars that leak and mold and mildew and if I could I could be here for a long time describing what that looks like for my East Coast Master Jet Base. I'm a broken record talking about why I need that commitment from the Navy for next generation strike fighter, but specifically F-35s, but it is a problem. So how are we going to fix this problem because it takes an average of four years, usually a little more to train these guys and millions of dollars. And I can't lose them to a growing airline industry to very competitive jobs out there. You know, I I understand this business more than most here. So what's your solution and what can we do to to keep these kids that are that we work hard to recruit and retain and train and be warfighters?

Thank you, ma'am. I appreciate that. I really hope they don't have the same couches your husband and I had at one of those.

They do. They do. They still do.

That so that's that's that's work to do there. I've got three aviators in my family, a pilot, a rotary wing pilot, a P-8 NFO and a student pilot to the Marines.

Always one.

No, I I gained one. I gained one. But I think closing the stay-do gap is important. I take a personal interest in this. When I when we look at I mean there's two areas when when the sailors, excuse me, when the officers who leave when we give them their exit surveys, it talks about trust in the institution and quality of their commanding officers. And the ones who don't leave or are not ready to leave, they always mention compensation as a motivator. So support for compensation, bonus structure, fly flying hour program, flight pay, excuse me, those things if we can bring that back up to you know the buying power we had back when I was a junior officer that might be helpful. From a really from a sailors first mindset, you know, we are teaching our commanding officers the tools that help retention. And some know it, many know it, some do not, but they've got to be trusted and trusted by their people and connected to their workforce. We're doing that under our total sailor fit to fight. I personally head up to Newport every three weeks to talk to every prospective commanding officer, executive officer, command master chief, COB, SCL and talk about the decisions. Really the conversation we had is you decided to stay, what fulfills you and how can you inspire those beneath us, those we work with to continue to stay in this great service. I've got children at the decision point right now and I'll I'll come back to you when I find out.

Ask them. Ask them. But I think just treating them like the elite fighting force that they signed up for. But and thank you for I know yesterday when we met you mentioned looking into even PCS moves and what that looks like when our no matter what your designator is, but you get married, you have a family and then when the families are in school and the spouses are working and you know that frequency of moves do we really have to can we can we just be a little more flexible about keeping families where they're where they're grounded. But you know right now when we when we talk about or I watch the news and Iran currently in the news a lot and they often times well the first thing you see is the F-18s taking off aircraft carriers and they'll throw in F-35s too but but and we love talk about aircraft carriers and ships in this committee, but if we don't focus on those people on the naval aviation side that mobile air superiority piece, we love the Air Force too but and really appreciate and the Marine Corps all our service branches, but that that mobile air superiority piece for the Navy, I just feel like I feel like we lose those people and and to hear you say that naval aviation is the one place that we're not doing as well in retention, I see that with my own eyes. So I couldn't be a louder advocate. So thank thank you for continuing the work you do. I appreciate all the all of your service. Thanks and I yield back.

Thank you. Minority's going to have an extra bonus of three and a half minutes, so that's okay. Chair now recognizes our friend from California, Representative Jacobs.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm not sure I have three and a half minutes extra, so maybe I'll pass it along to to someone else. But thank you all for being here. Obviously representing San Diego, these quality of life issues are my main concern and I'm particularly concerned right now about the well-being of our 11th MEU Marines and their families since these Marines are currently traveling to the Middle East aboard the USS Boxer in support of Operation Epic Fury. Obviously our our Marines are first to fight. They and their families know what they signed up for, but they also they and their families also deserve quality support programs and that's especially true during and after the time they're sent into harm's way. So I was particularly concerned about recent public reporting that the Marine Corps is phasing out their civilian personnel and family readiness program. These positions are needed now more than ever since these coordinators work with commanders to provide insight on quality of life for Marines and their families and help relay information to spouses during deployment. So General Bowers, with the changing optempo, do you anticipate that these civilian positions will still be phased out or are there conversations occurring to keep them employed to support our military families? How can we make sure that that our Marines are getting the support they need?

Thank you for the question, ma'am. We are looking at this. You're talking about the deployment readiness coordinator. We obviously don't have as many as we had when we were engaged in the furious optempo in Iraq and Afghanistan with units deploying all the time. But as units start to deploy more, we are looking at our inventory and looking at where we may need support, ma'am. We're looking at that closely.

Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. And you know, obviously I don't need to tell you how important it is to make sure that our Marines can focus on their job and that means making sure that their families are taken care of and especially during the time of armed conflict. This work can't be underprioritized. So I hope the Marine Corps will reconsider this restructuring. I hope you let us know if you need our help in making sure that we get that. As these MEU Marines return from the CENTCOM AOR, what is your plan to sequence their reintegration, post-deployment health assessments, decompression time, and family reintegration training to reduce the risk of relationship strain, mental health issues, or misconduct?

Thank you for the question, ma'am. As noted in our office call yesterday, I was recently out with the commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and I saw him talking to his general officers. They have robust family readiness plans in place. They have prepared their Marines extensively for this deployment. Marines are ready to be first to fight. Every Marine has a family readiness care plan and when they come back, there's a very set protocol for reintegrating those Marines back into their families, back into the environment they're in in San Diego and we will adhere to that and the commanding generals have that and they will execute it.

Thank you. Obviously cost of living is an issue in San Diego. Anyone who has been there knows that and it's continuing to increase. And I'm hearing a lot from service members in San Diego that the current CONUS COLA is just not sufficient to cover the increasing costs. Military families are frequently visiting food banks in San Diego. The numbers are astronomical. Sometimes we hear something like 45,000 members of military families are visiting the food bank every month. So I guess Admiral Czerewko, General Bowers, do you believe an increase in CONUS COLA would support quality of life for our military families stationed in high-cost areas like San Diego?

I'll take it, Billy. Yes. Sorry, a little back in the game. All right. I got a couple of kids in San Diego, cost of living is kicking their butt. I lived in San Diego, I lived on base, had good housing. It changed it. I think we need to work on that overall compensation so their purchasing power is on par with my military kids who live in Kitsap, the military kids who live in Jacksonville. So I agree we need to work on that.

Thank you.

And yes, ma'am, there is a survey that we discussed that Marines and families can take where they talk about the expenses. As we discussed, things have changed in San Diego, especially over the last six months with the cost of gas. When the survey becomes available, we really encourage max participation in the survey so we know what those Marines and families are dealing with so they can be compensated appropriately.

Thank you. And you know, please let us know what we can do to help with the uptake intake in taking that survey. I know the response rates are pretty low. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm sorry I didn't take your three minutes, but I'm sure one of my colleagues will happily do so. I yield back.

So you reserve, very good. Okay. Chair now recognizes our friend from Colorado, Representative Crank.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our witnesses for being here today and your work's vital to keeping our department fully manned and staffed and capable and ready for its mission. And I appreciate your commitment to our service members and to their families. So thank you for all that you do. Ms. Kelley, as the Space Force plans to nearly double in size over the next five years, how are you expanding recruiting and pipelines to meet in-strength targets while maintaining the quality of technical talent?

Yes, sir. Thank you very much for the question. It's certainly one of the most strategic challenges that we're working right now today. One of our primary goals is to ensure that leveraging the partnership that we have with the Air Force, we can mutually increase the throughput for our training pipelines. But we're also looking at creative solutions to take on some of that training burden ourselves for the Space Force. Historically we do rely heavily upon the Air Force for help, but in order for us to make some of this increased climb that we're expecting to see if supported by Congress, we're going to need to do some other creative things. The technical side of what we're doing has a challenge of desk space, making sure that you've got the right qualified instructors. So we're actually pushing a lot more of qualified instructors to our training units in order to increase the uptake and the training pipeline throughput. The other thing I would offer to you, sir, is that we do still have a lot of demand signal that has historically far outweighed our ability to bring people in. And we've seen a very high caliber of individual who is interested in coming to the Space Force. So we're we're encouraged by that data that the quality is not the immediate concern. It's working through some of the brick and mortar and instructor challenges to to get more through the pipeline.

I represent the U.S. Air Force Academy. How are you partnering with U.S. Air Force Academy to to make sure that you're meeting the Space Force's demand?

Yes, it's they've been an outstanding partner for us, sir. We get approximately 10 percent of the cadets that come through each class every year come to the Space Force. We also have instructors and academic cadre that we have at the academy to partner with them. The other thing that I think the academy's done a fantastic job of is inculcating space curriculum throughout their programs and that's not specific to those individuals who may go to the Space Force. That's for the entirety of the cadet body and I think that's absolutely the right answer. They've been a great partner, sir.

Great, great. That's good to hear. General Miller, the Air Force's FY 27 budget request suggests cutting adoption assistance for service members funding by half. Why is the Department of Air Force seeking these cuts and how do you think this reduction will affect the quality of life, retention, and family readiness for eligible service members?

Yes, thank you for the question. I will say that we are we are cutting it, but we are cutting it based on the numbers that we had previously in 2025. So we looked at the data for the last year and determined that the amount that we had set aside was not fully used, so we reallocated it. So we cut it back with the understanding that should there be more desire for it or more requests for it, that we will work with our FM partners and they are tracking that as well to increase that so we can support all of our airmen and their families.

So you believe the demand you'll meet demand with the budget that you have?

Congressman, the sheer complexity is puzzling. If we can make it more refined and simple, that would help overall.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Okay. Ms. Kelley, the ongoing challenges in getting care, especially for behavioral health and for those outside the continental United States, how's the Space Force working to improve medical readiness and access for members in remote locations?

Yes, sir. Thank you very much for the question. We rely heavily on the Air Force medical infrastructure and Air Force medics to help in those particular areas. But what I think is unique for our model and specific to your question, especially in some of those remote and austere conditions that we do have, is we've established our own resiliency team network. We call it GRIT teams, Guardian Resilience, that includes not just physical health and strategies, but mental health as well. We have licensed mental health providers, we have physical strength and conditioning coaches, we have holistic health integrators. We've created a model that is not just aligned to every unit, but we also have a virtualized team that is designed specifically to help augment where we have some of those OCONUS challenges. So it's a known challenge that we have to address. We're meeting it head on and the Air Force has been a tremendous partner in helping us as well. I will say that as we grow as a service, the Air Force medical community is going to need support from Congress to grow as well so that they can meet the total demand of both airmen and guardians. But I very much appreciate the question and we're on it.

Great. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I'm just a freshman, so I better stop. I yield back.

Thank you very much. Chair now recognizes our friend from Washington State, Representative Strickland.

Thank you, Chairman Fallon and Ranking Member Houlahan, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today and your continued service to our nation. This hearing comes at a very important time for the force and after several challenging years, the services have made tangible progress in stabilizing recruiting and in improving quality of life for service members. You professionalized recruiting and you're meeting people where they are and the results are showing. So thank you for that. At the same time, I represent Joint Base Lewis-McChord, which as you know in Washington State is not a low-cost region. 70 percent of those who serve live off post and housing costs are rising as are many other costs. And we're discussing a defense budget approaching approximately $1.5 trillion, yet we have to ask, are we keeping pace with the rising cost of housing? In fact, the Department of Defense is requesting approximately $777 million less for total basic allowance for housing in 2027 compared to 2026, even as housing costs continue to rise. And I want to be clear, I recognize that every one of you, you have to make choices, you get a finite budget, you do the best you can. So I want to start with General Eifler. In my district where JBLM is located, soldiers and families are facing rising housing costs. And I understand that you don't build the budget, but if the basic allowance for housing doesn't keep up with costs, do you agree that many soldiers and their families will effectively experience a reduction in their real compensation?

Yes, thanks, Congresswoman. I do think one, I share your concern. I share your passion to fix this. I think we're always in competition. It seems every time we raise the rates, the communities raise the rates for things. And I think we work with the department because I know they have a task force to sort of figure this out, how do we slow down this back and forth. And I think that's a real concern we've got to continue to work on. The budgets, like you say, they're getting bigger, but we continue to need more. And doing more with less is not a really good answer for our soldiers and families, but that's what we're stuck with, especially as you talked about in the regions where the cost of living is already high. So that's a challenge we are definitely trying to address.

Can you tell me which populations you believe are most at risk from this? Is it junior enlisted families or those just stationed in high cost areas?

I think it's all of the above. I think if you're whether you're a single officer or a young officer with a family or you're young enlisted with a family and you're off post, it's tremendously more difficult, but I think they all have very levels of challenges. And this is not just true in Washington, there's other areas as well. And that's something that we always as leaders, we have to stay engaged on. It's not their private, it's not none of your business, it is your business. This is the military and we need to make sure we're not putting people in places and in regions where they can't afford to do that. And I think it is our duty to try to make sure we provide for everything they need.

Great, thank you, General. General Miller, at JBLM, airmen and their families are facing the same rising housing costs obviously. What impact do you think this has on family stability and ultimate readiness of our airmen at installations like JBLM and across the force?

Well, financial security is a big concern for everybody. Because if you have to worry about your finances, child care or whatever it is, infrastructure, you can't be focused on the mission. And so we do a lot of work and analysis on how much people are making. We've got the basic needs assessment that we put out there and we make sure that airmen are at the appropriate levels. The challenges to your point, ma'am, is that the prices just continually go up and they go up rapidly. I mean, this is a perfect example of just the rising costs. I mean, you look at gas prices one day and the next day, I mean, they're over $5 here. It's crazy. And so we're very concerned with that. I do expect that it's going to negatively impact if we can't make sure that we can compensate our airmen or all of our service members appropriately.

Do you think this is affecting retention?

It's hard to make that connection right now because our retention is unbelievably high. I mean, we're sitting over 90 percent on our retention. I think that as the year and then the next year go on, subsequent years, we'll have to make sure that we continue to watch that and see if that's a direct link.

Great, thank you. And again, you know, we're having a discussion about dramatically increasing the defense budget and sometimes when I talk with Ranking Member Smith, we focus on the actual top line number, but it really has to be a conversation about how are we deploying the dollars that we have and we have to focus on quality of life for our members. I yield back, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much. Chair now recognizes our friend from New Hampshire, Representative Goodlander.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to our witnesses today for being here to answer our questions and for your service to our country. I want to pick up on a point you've all made very powerfully in this hearing, which is that the uncertainty around regular appropriations has massive readiness implications, it has massive implications for our men and women in uniform. We're right now in the midst of the longest shutdown in American history and I'm a big believer that under no circumstances should our service members, should any Department of Defense personnel be forced to work without a paycheck. Do you all agree with that basic principle?

I think I can speak for everybody, yes, Congresswoman.

Very good. I love that agreement. And we should do something about this. We've got legislation that would prevent this completely backwards situation where we've got members of Congress who continue to collect paychecks while our service members are put in a situation of uncertainty and of real pain because as we've talked about in this hearing, the cost of living right now in this country is sky high. And when we just go to we just talked about housing, but I want to take a minute to talk about the cost of groceries and the cost of food. So I was pretty surprised to see that the latest assessment I believe that we have right now about hunger or food insecurity in our military and food insecurity our Department of Agriculture defines that as access by all people at all times to enough food for an active and healthy lifestyle. Every service member needs to be food secure. In 2018, more than 25 percent of Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard personnel were not food secure. Can you each speak to what the state of play is in each of your service branches with respect to the basic food security of your personnel? Do you have the latest stats?

What I could talk about, Congresswoman, is what we've obviously identified the populace that we're most concerned about based on what we've seen is young enlisted families that have multiple children, usually two or three. And that is the sort of the dynamic. There's a lot of people that don't like to ask for help, so there may be a little stigma, we're trying to fight through that, but to us it's a really of awareness. Leaders should know much what you were talking about with living in places that they can't afford or their finances. Two things that we've been focus on is financial education and then the type of support that they could get through programs like ACS and things like that. There are food kitchens out there on post for lack of better term, food cupboards. I mean, I know my daughter works at one on installation and people come in there. And so that's a very real thing. I don't have the numbers right now, but I know we've been working on it constantly. People aren't aware and I think that's the biggest thing is to make sure that they're aware that this is happening maybe underneath their nose and they haven't seen it and they haven't looked close enough.

Yes, ma'am. For the Navy, we have a robust education and counseling series with Fleet and Family Support Centers as well as the family life counselors. Those reviews are done. I'd like to come back to you with the number.

Yeah, thank you. I will definitely be submitting questions for the record just to get I think we could do all the counseling in the world, but if we don't know the scope of the problem and we aren't properly resourcing it, service members are going to be hungry and that's just unacceptable in the United States of America.

I agree with you, ma'am.

Thank you, Admiral. I want to pick up in my last minute here. I'm very proud to represent the men and women of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, America's first public shipyard, its finest with all due respect to my colleague. I want to ask you, last year in the NDAA, we secured an important provision that prohibits the department from carrying out a hiring freeze, reduction in force, or hiring delay without cause at any public shipyard in America. I'm concerned that our shipyards may be being tasked by the department to provide information on potential reductions in force. I want to ask you if that's the case, just if you could clarify whether that is in fact the case that the department is looking for ways to move forward with reductions in force at our public shipyards.

We are looking, working with the Secretariat to maximize the efficiency of our workforce. With recent authority given to the Navy now to have CIVPERS oversight, we were able to finally see overall personnel risk, CIVPERS risk in the Navy. I just got that last week and I can see where those are and advocate and work with MNRA on the Secretariat side to ensure we don't gain more risk and carry more risk. Our shipyards, the workforce in the shipyards are so critically important to our combat lethality that we can't take we need to retire risk there. So I agree with you, ma'am.

Well, thank you for that, Admiral. I would be grateful to get as much information as you can share with me about what the planning looks like because I'll tell you, it's been one of the most difficult years over the past year for our shipyards and with all the uncertainty and all at a moment when we need to be scaling up and capturing that specialized talent, this nonsense, which I know is a lot of it is coming from OPM, has been a huge hugely detrimental to our shipyard. So I really want to understand what the Navy's approach is and work with you to be sure that you're complying with the law under the NDAA of last year and that we're all on the same page. But I'm glad to hear that we see this the same way. We need to make sure we're scaling up and supporting the talent we need at our shipyards.

Our shipyards need to be able to do their jobs and get our ships back into the fight as quick as possible. I agree.

Well, I thank you for that. And with that I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome. Chair now recognizes our friend from California, Representative Cisneros.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank all our witnesses for being here today and since we've been kind of loose on time, I may go over and I'll try and keep it under 30 minutes.

You got 99 extra seconds. I'm tracking it.

But thanks again for this hearing and I hope it's one of many that we have throughout this year. And if I could just start off by saying just one thing about recruiting and the numbers and the improvement we've seen. We started to see these numbers change when we started to invest again in recruiting, putting resources into it. It allowed you to make some of those changes that you talked about earlier today. And I hope as we kind of move forward, we don't get complacent and say that oh, we figured this out and so now we can take money away or let the your chiefs of staff or the CNO or the commandants say oh, okay, we're good now. We have got to keep asking for these resources because we're never ever going to solve this problem. We need to kind of keep going at it continually, continually, continually to make sure that we are putting the money in there to hit these recruiting numbers because it is challenging out there, especially when you have unemployment that's less than 4 percent. There's a lot of competition for jobs out there and the services are in that and so we need to make sure that you all keep advocating, I will keep advocating to make sure that we continue to fund our recruiting programs that you have the resources to keep doing that. And with that, I will get to my first question and it's hopefully an easy one here, but earlier this year Congressman Bergman and I introduced Duty Status Reform Act, which would consolidate the current 29 different duty statuses that we use to call up our reserves and National Guard into four broad categories. I know this is something I know it's wanted inside the Pentagon, I know the National Guard Bureau wants it, I'm sure if you talk to your colleagues there at the recruiting commands or in the various services, they will tell you I'm sorry, at the reserve commands, I should say, they will tell you that they need this. But it gives equitable benefits and pay to our reserve component members all throughout the service. So can I ask all of you, would you all be in favor of this duty status reform to simplify this process?

I believe so. Yes, Congressman. I believe so. Yes, Congressman. Yes.

Congressman, the sheer complexity is puzzling. If we can make it more refined and simple, that would help overall and support our members.

Thank you.

I 100 percent concur. Thank you.

Concur, Congressman.

Thank you. Ms. Kelley?

Yes, sir. As you recall when you were in the building, there was a lot of conversation on this and some of the legislative authorities that this committee supported the Space Force on through the Personnel Management Act mirror a lot of what's in the duty status reform language. So absolutely supportive, sir.

Thank you for that. General Eifler, the Command Assessment Program, or CAP, was pulled early last year after a five-year pilot program started in 2019. It was pretty much institutionalized in February of last year and then by September of 2025, seven months later, it was said it was done with. Service leaders agreed that this was a more thorough vetting solution to select top officers and enlisted leaders for the service battalion, brigade, medical service, and acquisitions, also for the sergeant majors positions. It was a process, right? A thorough interview process that allowed us to select these individuals. Why did that program go away when it was so effective and so many people agreed with it?

I think you have to ask the department. It was a directive to shut it down and so we did.

Did you participate in that program?

I did participate as one of the board members, I did.

And what did you think of the program?

I thought it gave a perspective, a different perspective on the total person that we were looking at.

Yeah. So, you know, when you look at corporate America and how we do things there, nowhere would they ever not select people for high positions without doing or going through an interview process. And why we do that in the military, just kind of look at them on paper and do a board and say, okay, now you're fit for command, has always been beyond me. I liked that CAP program. I thought it was very intuitive. I thought it kind of took a deep look at how we did that and to me it was a shame that it went away and I hope it's something we can get back to. And General Eifler, not to pick on you again here, but when you were in command in Alaska, I love how you instituted that program around mental health for your soldiers that were out there, making sure that they had an annual check-in, whether it be with religious leaders there or with a behavioral health specialist. Now that you're in this position now, is there any way to kind of institute that throughout the Army and make it bigger so that everybody could take advantage of that?

Thanks for that question, Congressman, and I appreciate your passion on this topic. You know, we went back earlier, we said what wish could we have for you guys to do for us. This is one of those wishes that I wish I could just wish and make it go away. This is something that is a challenge across all our services, a little bit in society as well, that we've got to get better at this. I do advocate for that a lot of what we did was command emphasis and you know if leaders own it, it makes a difference. And although you can't necessarily save everybody even if you do everything right, those TTPs have been spread across the force. There's been different ways to do it, certain areas have different techniques, commanders have embraced it and I think that's continuing to do so. A lot of the techniques when people are going through some spurts of suicides, I make sure that they have some expertise out there, some people that we like to talk to and consult to help them out. So yes, we're trying to share that across the board. I don't think we've said, hey, everybody must do this. There's some inherent dangers in some of that because people have to own it, leaders have to own it. So that's what we've been really emphasizing in across the force is own it, do what you can do to connect with our soldiers. Secretary put something out last year about that, about connecting, because when you're not connected you get isolated and you start losing hope, that's the recipe for disaster.

Again, it was a great program and I applaud you for instituting that in Alaska and I hope it is something that we can continue to build on not only in the Army but hopefully maybe adopt in the other services that everybody should have an annual check-in to check on their mental health. It would be very, very valuable. And my last question here and I'll keep it simple.

If you could be quick, we're even on time. Thanks.

I will. IRC recommendations around sexual assault and harassment, that was something that was 82 recommendations came out in 2021. We started to institute those in 2022. Are we still working on those? Are we kind of, you know, the money was allocated, we were working on a professional force, getting away from a collateral duty around, you know, what the Army calls our SHARP program coordinators and stuff. Is that still being worked on?

And if you could keep your answer quick. Thank you.

Yes, Congressman, it has. It is. We're still doing it.

Yes, for the United States Navy.

Yes, for the Air Force.

Yes, the Marine Corps still takes it as a priority.

All right. Are we still working, Ms. Kelley, but just real quick, are we still trying to get that professional workforce, civilian workforce there and get rid of this as a collateral duty?

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

That, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Yes, gentleman's time has expired. Now the chair now recognizes the from Hawaii, Representative Tokuda.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think Gil is just mad because we would go overtime questioning him when he was on the other side of the table before. I do want to piggyback on this question of health. A big concern for me is access to healthcare for our military service members and their dependents. I was very disappointed, I know we were supposed to have a meeting with the Defense Health Agency. I do hope that gets rescheduled because there's a lot of questions that I have for them and they pulled out literally that day from coming before us. But you are all responsible as well for the uniformed healthcare workforce, including doctors, nurses, behavioral health providers, and more. And I just want to point out while chaplains are amazing advocates and assets, I've talked to many who feel burnt out because there's not enough behavioral health specialists to really be able to meet those medical needs. Uniformed medical staffing has declined by 16 percent between 2015 and 2023 and I fear that that trend will continue, making it much harder for military personnel and their families to get timely, life-saving appointments that they need. And so just very quickly if you all can go through, do you have, I can tell you right now, nobody feels that they have enough access. I know we're all doing our best, but everyone knows that the access is limited. Do you have a plan to increase the number of uniformed doctors, nurses, and behavioral health providers under your purview? I think actually Air Force doctors don't even get assigned to military hospitals and clinics, many work in civilian hospitals and provide care there is my understanding. But if we can go down the line and says, do you have a plan to get more uniformed providers, health providers, taking care of?

Yeah, we're working with DHA and the department on that for sure. I think we need more. I don't think there's enough behavioral health folks in the world to help us in society as well as the military. We do have embedded behavioral health into our brigades, which is really helpful. So that's one of the things that we're continuing to do.

Thank you.

Ma'am, we also don't have enough and we did recruit over 5,000 medical personnel last year. Most of them are still in training, these are support like corpsmen, dental techs, etc. We have increased our mission and performance for bringing physicians in to 69 last year, which is well over previous years' performance and we're continuing to drive that, but we're struggling on that as well.

Yes, ma'am, we are, we work, I work closely with Lieutenant General DeGoes, our Surgeon General, on how to recruit, find the specialties first of all and then how we can recruit them. Additionally, expanding our telehealth opportunities for individuals. We know that overseas it's very difficult, it's very difficult for family members and dependents to get the care that they need. So we are doing everything that we can, but to my colleagues' points, there's a shortage across the United States for this skill set.

Ma'am, I concur with my colleagues and the Marine Corps also fully supports the Navy increasing the number of chaplains and I know that's something that's being looked at, ma'am.

Ma'am, from the Space Force side, we rely upon the Air Force ecosystem and also the relationship with Defense Health to make sure that there are sufficient numbers. So we acknowledge the point you're making for sure. From the Space Force perspective, in order to augment some of that shortage, which we absolutely concur with, we've started hiring civilian positions, licensed mental health providers that we've embedded in our resilience teams in order to try to address some of the shortfall that you're talking about.

Thank you. You know, given I think we all know what the mission is for us in terms of delivering healthcare, especially behavioral health support to our service members and their families, just a yes or no answer, do you support cutting direct care in the military health system as has been reflected in the President's budget? I believe he cut half a billion dollars in this area and DHA has told us that they need $3 billion to provide even adequate basic levels of access to care. So do you support the President's budget to cut half a billion dollars in direct care to military health systems?

I haven't seen that, so I just know we need more and that concerns me. Over.

Ma'am, I haven't seen it as well. We need more capacity.

Yeah, I would concur, we absolutely need more capacity.

Quality healthcare is very important to Marines and families and we support providing the best available.

And ma'am, concur with my colleagues.

Thank you. I think we're all in agreement we need more, not less. So that's what we'll be fighting for. And I know I have very limited time, so I'll just make this statement of, I know Mr. Moylan's not here from Guam, he's possibly in the middle of a super typhoon at this moment. So I'd like to just speak up for him a little bit. The military has plans to send I think 10,000 service members, civilian workers, family members over to Guam from a number of different areas, from Okinawa, from Hawaii, from other parts of the Pacific. My concern for them is that they do not have adequate hospital or medical care facilities. If we think about the fact that Guam has no accredited hospital providing maternity and pediatric care for civilians, if you have any kind of high-risk pregnancy, if you need any kind of pediatric care, you actually cannot get it if you're a civilian employee on Guam. You come to Hawaii. And then when we think just about the fact that right now we're preparing to send them all there by 2032, I believe is the timeline, Marine Corps, Navy, Army. Are we giving advance warning to some of our civilian employees and even our service members that the care is not adequate to be able to meet some of their family needs as they head over to Guam? Are we considering even investing more into our DOD hospital, which I do not know if they have the capacity to handle 10,000 more service members, civilian workers, and family members within their facilities? Well, many come to Hawaii, as I know, for care and so I'm just worried we have this build-up, have we considered the healthcare infrastructure on Guam as we've been building up Fort Blaz? Camp Blaz, excuse me. And I know that I will reserve that that you can answer the committee later, but just noting that this is a significant problem for one of my fellow Pacific Island areas and really think we need to do something to address it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield.

And it was very gracious of you to mention that. And one of the jobs of being a chair is to be the time nerd, so there is three minutes left on our side now. But I'm not to to balance, I did have an extra just quick question that I think it would be in interest of all the members that are still here. Your active duty, Reserve, and Guard, if you have it, strengths for new recruits this year, if you happen to have those figures. If you don't, you can just get it to us. But with General, do you know what your target's going to be for this fiscal year?

For this year, active component is 61,500, for the National Guard it's 37,155, and then for the Reserve it's 14,322.

Admiral?

45,000 on the active component and I'll get back to you on the Reserve, but they are at 100 percent end strength and we're on plan, I just don't have the number. Hooyah.

General Miller?

Yes, sir. For the officer for the active duty it's 10,108 and then for our Guard it's 3,227, our Guard warrant officers it's 57, our let's see, reserve officers 1,292, reserve warrants are four, and then I'll let Kate do the security force or...

Do you know enlisted?

Oh, yes, sir. Enlisted, so 32,900 active, 730 active Space Force, 10,549 guard, and 6,576 reserve.

Thank you. General.

Chairman, I will get you the exact numbers of active and reserve officer and enlisted. It will be approximately 38,000 total force.

Okay. Thank you very much. I did also want to point out that even though the BAH is going down and it's something that's a concern of mine as well, that there is going to be a very nice pay raise depending on your rank, five, six, seven percent. So that is something that was very good, I think everybody up in this committee was glad to see that as well. I want to thank you all very much. It is precarious times, the world is an ever smaller and more dangerous place. I did want to take an editor's note to, you know, think about the shadow box for General Miller when she retires and it's up there on the wall. It's not going to even have one space for two stars. It's going right, if you went from one to three. That's kind of a neat and weird deal. Congratulations. But thank you so much. I want to thank everybody and again the witnesses, thank you for your service, dedication to the Republic, and this committee stands adjourned.