DOD Personnel Policies and Programs: FY27 Authorization, Future Years Program

Might as well turn that on. Willingness to appear before the committee and discuss the department's priorities, challenges and ongoing initiatives. Also wanna recognize what has been a welcome shift back toward a focus on warfighting, readiness, standards and lethality across the force. Our military exists to deter conflict and if necessary fight and win wars, strong leadership, discipline and mission focus matter to the readiness of the joint force, and I appreciate your leadership to reintroduce and reinforce those priorities. At the same time, many of the personnel and readiness issues facing the pers- the force present, significant changes for the senior leadership as well as our service members. While recruiting has improved significantly over the last two years and retention remains strong across much of the force, cannot afford to become complacent. The department continues to face long-term demogra- graphic challenges, increasing competition from the private sector, and a shrinking pool of Americans eligible for military service. The strength of our military depends not only on the weapons systems we feel or the operations we conduct, but on our ability to care for the men and women who serve this nation and the families who stand beside them. This subcommittee has spent years working on issues like military compensation, child care, spouse employment, and professional development because taking care of service members and their families directly impacts readiness and retention. As the department continues to make significant investments across the defense enterprise, it is crucial that resources remain focused on the quality of life, health care, and personal readiness issues and most directly affect service members, military families, and overall force readiness. Today, the military health system faces significant funding and readiness challenges that threaten access to care strain military treatment facilities and jeopardize the retention of highly skilled medical professionals. At a time of increasing global threats and growing demands on our force, we cannot afford to under-invest in the health care infrastructure that underpins military readiness, ensuring stable, significant uh, sufficient and predictable funding for the military health system, is not simply a health care issue, it is a national security imperative. Today's hearing also provides an important opportunity for the committee to hear directly from the department's civilian leadership on the policies and decisions shaping the force. Too often military leaders appearing before Congress are asked to def- end or explain policy decisions that ultimately originate elsewhere within the department. This hearing gives us the opportunity to discuss those decisions directly with the officials responsible for developing and implementing them. I appreciate all of you being here today, and we look forward to your testimony. Senator Warren.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for being with us today. Our annual posture hearing provides an opportunity for the department to discuss personnel priorities for the coming year, and it's also an opportunity for this subcommittee to continue to focus specifically on the challenges that service members and their families are facing. That is our job. Um, since this subcommittee's posture hearing last April, Secretary Hegseth and President Trump have asked our troops to risk their lives in an illegal war with Iran at the same moment that the administration's actions make life harder for service members and their families. President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have badly mismanaged America's military budget. The army reportedly needs to make up for a shortfall of four to six billion dollars. Now, to fill that gap, the army is reportedly looking to slash training cro costs across the force, including by cutting pilots at flight hours, which could have serious safety consequences. We should ask ourselves why is there such a huge gap? And the answer is that the president's decisions to drag the military into a war with Iran and at the same time to use the military to do DHS's job at the southern border. And the gap is getting even wider because the army still has not been reimbursed by the Department of Homeland Security for its past support in border operations. Now, Secretary Hegstaff has also continued to send chilling messages of who is and who is not welcome in America's military. So far, despite repeated questions from Congress, there have been no explanations for multiple abrupt remu- removals of top military officers. The secretary also reportedly blocked the promotion of four army officers to become one-star generals, two of whom are black and two of whom are women. Secretary Hegseth is also requiring a review of the, quote, "effectiveness of having women in ground combat roles." Despite senior enlisted leaders testifying before this subcommittee in February of this year that women in combat arms units do not lower standards and attacks on university partnerships will limit opportunities for troops to develop leadership skills and risk gains in both recruitment and retention. Secretary Hegseth has also continued to undermine the military justice system. He fired the top military lawyers shortly after he was confirmed to avoid, quote, roadblocks to President Trump. Those roadblocks are known as the law. The secretary has sent Judge Advocate General off to work as immigration judges or federal prosecutors in Minneapolis. and other cities. He said the Iran war would have, quote, no stupid rules of engagement. He also launched a, quote, ruthless review of the roles of JAGS that may simply be one more way to reduce accountability for potentially illegal policies. The administration also continues to treat DOD's civilian workforce with contempt. It is shameful that for the second year in a row, DOD's budget request fails to include a dollar of pay raises for civilian employees. That is shameful. With Trump policies driving up costs for all Americans, this is a significant pay cut for DOD's civilians who play critical roles in our military, critical roles supporting service members and families' quality of life, contracting and acquisition for s- weapons systems, engineering, holding together our medical health system as the chairman identified, and much, much more. Secretary Hegseff is taking other steps that endanger the health of our troops. Last month he announced that DOD would end the mandatory flu vaccine, which has been in place since nineteen forty five. Keep in mind that the flu vaccine was made mandatory after twenty to forty percent of the US Army and Navy personnel fell ill during World War One, resulting in over twenty six thousand deaths and significant degradation in military readiness. Mandatory vaccines in the military date all the way back to when General George Washington mandated that troops be vaccinated against smallpox back in seventeen seventy seven. Secretary Hegseth is playing politics with the health and the readiness of our military, and that is wrong. There is much to talk about, but I want to focus on two topics with our witnesses. First, we need to ensure that the contractors entrusted to administer TriCare benefits are keeping our service members and their families healthy, not just using taxpayer dollars to boost their own bottom lines. Express Scripps, which is the largest pharmacy benefit manager in the United States, has held the TriCare pharmacy contract for twenty years now. And over that time, Express Scripps has forced thousands of pharmacies out of the TriCare network, which makes it a whole lot harder for service members to fill prescriptions, but it likely boosts the orders and the profits for Express Scripps mail-order pharmacy. For years, I've been calling for more transparency into the TriCare pharmacy contract. But DOD has carefully protected the interests of express scripts at every single step. It is time for TRICARE to put the interests of our service members first. They should do it on their own, but if they don't, then Congress should force them to do so. Second, we need to have protections in place for service members to report serious concerns to protected channels without fear of reprisal. Military families have long dealt with terrible living conditions in housing that is owned by private military contractors. But those private companies have muzzled families by forcing them to sign nondisclosure agreements to get compensation for the damages that they have suffered. I appreciate that one of the department's legislative proposal for this year's NDAA would be to make clear that tenants are protected from reprisals for reporting dangerous and disgusting housing conditions to an Inspector General, to Congress, or to the Department of Defense. But we shouldn't stop there. We must make clear to service members, including in other contexts where they're forced to sign NDAs, that they still have the right to report serious violations of the law, to report gross wastes of money, abuse, serious threats to public safety, and to do it all through protected channels. We also need to make sure that we are protecting service members who come forward to report serious concerns to troops' safety and health, such as unsafe weapons or aircraft systems, so they can report Congress, to DOD, and to the IG. Safety of our troops and the efficient operation of DOD should be at the top of our list, and that means protecting people who have the courage to call out problems and make us aware of them. So I look forward to discussing these topics with our witnesses. Thank you, Mister Chairman.

Thanks, Senator Warren. Now we'll turn to our opening statements. Uh, the Honorable Anthony Tatum. Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.

Thank you, uh, Mr. Chairman, uh, good afternoon, uh, uh, Chairman Tarberville, Ranking Member Warren, distinguished members of the personnel subcommittee, thank you and your staff, uh, for the opportunity to testify today and for your shared resolve, uh, to care for our service members, their families, and Department of War civilians, and to ensure that our military remains ready, lethal, and unmatched. When patriotic young Americans answer the call to defend our nation, we answer a call of our own to look after them and the families who serve and sacrifice alongside them. This includes our fallen heroes and their loved ones. Uh, they will never be forgotten. President Trump and Secretary Hedstaff have prioritized the well-being and preparedness of our warriors from day one. Since last July, my team and I have focused on optimizing personnel and readiness policies in line with their guidance. We have taken swift action to deliver tangible outcomes that directly improve the lives of the people we serve. For example, we have enabled historic recruiting successes and strong retention rates through innovative initiatives like MEPs in a box, expanded our partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs, striving to expedite the transfer of electronic health records, created an aviation mishap task force to address concerning trends in aviation, and more recently authorized the evacuation of military civilian families in Bahrain, helping to coordinate safe moves and continuous access to education. Indeed, a service member who knows their family is well cared for is one who is focused on their mission with this as a governing principle we will continue to ensure that our warriors and their families have access to high quality health care, sound education for their children, food security, and meaningful employment opportunities. Meanwhile, we are working to re-shore the pharmaceutical supply chain for military essential medications transform the Department of War education activity to better serve our students revitalize professional military education in line with our core war fighting mission modernize the Defense Commissary Agency and establish Project Patriot Pipeline to develop mission, critical skills for the department and the defense industrial base. The president's historic one point five trillion dollar budget enables further investments in these activities, allowing us to build on hard-earned gains that will benefit our military community and our mission for years to come. Under the leadership of President Trump and Sec- Secretary Headsup, the department has made strong progress. With your support, we will keep advancing the policies and programs that enable our people to thrive and the force to remain ready. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to answering your questions.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. The next is Honorable Tim Deal, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs. Secretary.

Chairman Tuberville, Ranking Member Warren, and distinguished members of the personnel subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak about the heartbeat of the Department of War, our men and women in uniform, our civilian workforce, and their families. My team is guided by President Trump's directive to achieve peace through strength and Secretary Hegsdass's three key pillars restoring the warrior ethos, rebuilding our military, and reestablishing deterrence. I'm grateful for Secretary Hegsdass and Under Secretary Tata's leadership in accomplishing these tasks. As a former Green Beret, I constantly remember the first of United States' special operations command soft truths, humans are more important than hardware. The department must attract, develop, employ, and retain the finest talent by offering a meaningful mission, setting high uncompromising standards, and taking care of our people. We're succeeding on that front. In fiscal year twenty twenty five, the military's recruiting efforts broke records, with all active duty services meeting the recruiting and retention goals. That momentum continues in fiscal year twenty twenty six. We can never fully compensate our service members for their sacrifices, but we must ensure they're financially secure. Our recent review confirms the department's total military compensation package is strongly competitive with the civilian labor market. To reward our top civilian performers, the department recently processed more than ninety thousand cash awards. We are expanding spouse education and career development opportunities, and removing unnecessary regulations to reduce military spouse unemployment. increasing child care opportunities, and focusing our DeWia schools on core academic excellence and transparency with parents. I've witnessed firsthand the bravery, sacrifice, and resilience of our men and women in uniform, our civilian personnel, and their families, and I am privileged to serve them. They are the reason the American military is the most lethal fighting force in history. May God bless our troops, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you very much. Next, we have the Honorable Keith Bass, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs.

Chairman Tuberville, Ranking Member Warren, and distinguished members of this committee, thank you for this opportunity to represent the hundred and thirty thousand men and women of the military health system. The present is fiscal year budget two thousand twenty seven. It's a direct investment. Our most vital military and our most vital military asset, our people. This budget equips the department to counter evolving threats and most importantly to safeguard the health and well-being of our service members. A medically ready force is a lethal force, and to that end, our primary focus is on ensuring our medical personnel are strategically positioned to enhance force readiness and maintain the critical clinical skills, required for combat casualty care. To further this objective, we are strengthening our strategic partnership with the Department of Veterans Affairs. These collaborations are vital. They enable the delivery of joint health care services, optimize the use of taxpayer resources, and enhance the patient access across both systems, ensuring a seamless continuum of care for our nation's heroes. The proposed budget funds critical combat support requirements, including our bud- our blood program, joint trauma care, and medical logistics. These investments allow for rapid deployment of life-saving technologies to support our medical personnel, and the most austere and remote locations. With the continued and invaluable support of Congress, we are making significant investments in the military medical research uh and development. These efforts directly address the unique threats our war fighters face, with particular focus on advancing brain health and expanding access to mental health care services. Finally, we are taking decisive action to remedy the tricare transition issues. My leadership team is aggressively focused on enhanced contract oversight, process improvement, accountabilities at all levels to ensure that no member of our community faces unnecessary delays in receiving care. We are redoubling our efforts to ensure beneficiaries are aware of resolution channels including our dedicated TRICARE benefits counselors and patient advocates to address any issues with billing, access, or quality of care. Our war fighters, past and present, and their families deserve a health care system they can depend on without reservation. I'm grateful for the enduring partnership and the support of this committee, and it has provided to the department and to the military health system. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you very much. The next is Honorable Maurice Todd, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness.

Chairman Tuberville, Ranking Member Warren, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the readiness of our total force. As we navigate a strategic landscape defined by persistent competition and accelerating technological change, the partnership between the department and this committee has never been more vital to our national defense. Our national defense strategy demands a joint, disciplined force that is lethal, agile, and decisively superior, ensuring our warfighters can deploy, fight, and win in any conflict. My office is committed to translating that strategic imperative into operational and tactical reality. Over the past year, our direct partner partnership with this committee has yielded significant tangible wins in our readiness enterprise. By executing our strategic priorities and applying resources precisely where they generate the greatest operational impact, we are maintaining a proactive, dominant posture across the globe. This deliberate allocation of our forces and readiness capabilities does more than maximize our combat credibility and readiness it builds vital trust with the American people, and takes care of our war fighters. We are seeing the results of this unified effort through several critical wins. In aviation and operational safety, we are aggressively prioritizing mishap prevention to protect our air crews. Through the new Aviation Mishap Task Force, we are examining mishaps to identify critical safety issues and solutions to improve aviation safety throughout the force. We have also refocused military education and training standards to restore the warrior ethos to forge the intellectual and tactical readiness of the total force, recognizing that our true advantage is the intellect and resilience of our war fighters. By fundamentally refocusing professional military education on mission-relevant curricula, we are ensuring our war fighters have the dedicated time to master the skills required to out-think and out-fight any adversary. In human performance and brain health, we are aggressively mitigating risk to brain health from blast overpressure. We have established cognitive baselining at all initial military training sites and are modernizing how we track lifetime exposures. Thanks to your partnership in the fiscal year twenty twenty five, NDAA, we are developing blast-specific safety thresholds and deploying new blast safety officers across the force. We are actively promoting a culture of safety across the enterprise by tackling systemic risks head-on to protect our most valuable asset, our people. Ultimately, the shared focus guarantees that our total force is ready to deter aggression and, if called upon, to prevail decisively against any threat to American interests. As a public servant to the American people, I am deeply committed to this mission and to our continued partnership to ensure the readiness of our warfighters. Thank you for your continued partnership. I look forward to your questions.

OK, thank you very much. Um, as we start here, we'll just go through a round of questioning. Mister Tata, recently we heard about a project you've been working on called Project Patriot Pipeline. Could you explain to us what that is?

Thank you, uh, Chairman. Thank you for your and the ranking members' uh commitment in this committee's commitment to our men and women in uniform project. Patriot pipeline uh is a direct result of the secretary's focus on the arsenal of freedom. As he has traveled around the country uh to bolster our defense industrial base uh we and the personnel and readiness domain asked ourselves the questions, how are we going to resource this with the talent necessary to expand the arsenal of freedom and - and complete the mission, and indeed uh to uh align presidential uh priorities and uh personnel policy. And so what we've done is we've taken a look at several different work streams. You have active National Guard reserve, you have spouses, and you have civilian workforce, uh that uh we are uh charged with managing. And within each one, we want to encourage reenlistment, and we want to encourage reenlistment into those high demand, low density, military occupational skills such as patriot, cyber, and uh, uh, aviation maintainer. And we are aligning bonuses with the services to ensure that we are, uh, encouraging folks to reenlist within those key high demand low density MOSs within if they choose to leave service we wanna capture that training and investment that we made in their training so that we're able to keep that half million or million dollars that we put into that individual and if they're an aviation maintainer in the military we want them to be a depot aviation maintainer and so we are tweaking tuition assistance and skill bridge time to be able to incentivize folks that want to migrate into the defense industrial base to try to incentivize them into those key skill sets. We have a real issue with our Aviation Depot maintainers. We're gonna drop off the cliff here pretty soon, and demand is gonna go way up, uh, you know, uh, dependent upon the platform that we're talking about. And so we - we are trying to get ahead of that. by incentivizing people, if they are going to leave, to stay within the defense industrial base. And I include health care, education in the defense industrial base as well. And so we are incentivizing people through tuition assistance, through extra time and Skill Bridge. Come down to military spouses. We have a huge military spouse employment effort going on. We're rebranding it as spouse works where we have the uh Skill Bridge-like program that uh they can do the uh internships and then begin to work. We have money where we can pay for scholarships. We're gonna increase that to incentivize them to go into the defense industrial base, whether that's healthcare, education, aviation maintainer, welder, ship builder, uh all of that to us are spouses and - and uh deserve these opportunities and we've allowed for direct hiring authority in - in many of these areas to help with the Patriot pipeline, as we call it. And then third, the civilian workforce, we want them to re-enlist, so to speak, and re-up within the civilian domain to go into things such as the Golden Dome, cyber, and these real critical high demand, low density areas where we need the real talent. And so it's a holistic approach from when someone comes in, We're trying to incentivize them through bonuses into these critical high demand, low density areas. We're trying to keep them in, which we're doing, and - and recruiting and retention are going very well right now. And then to - to the very end when they choose to get out, if that's three years or thirty years, we've invested a lot of money in that professional military education. We want them to stay, or espouse. We want that person to be able to work in the defense industrial base and make our country stronger, make that arsenal of freedom stronger. And then likewise with our civilian workforce. So that's it in a nutshell. We are trying to complement the secretary's efforts a- and uh uh under secretary Duffy's ef- efforts in the arsenal of freedom to undergird it with the talent necessary to run the arsenal of freedom.

Thank you. Senator Warren.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The TRICARE pharmacy benefit helps nine million service members, veterans and their families access prescription drugs. Tricare's pri- uh pharmacy contractor, Express Scripps, decides which pharmacies are included in the Tricare network and decides what they're going to get paid. Um, and of course Express Scripps is supposed to work for the DOD and for military families. That's what taxpayers pay Express Scripps to do. Except Express Scripps also runs its own pharmacy that participates in the TriCare network, a competitor to every other pharmacy. And that means that Express Scripps both provides pharmacy services to TriCare members directly, and sets the reimbursement rates for itself and all of its competitors. That gives Express Scripps an incentive to under-reimburse all of the competing pharmacies and inflate its own payments. So, how is that deal working out for the taxpayers? Express Scripps reportedly charged DOD four hundred and eighty-four dollars more, on average, for generic drugs dispensed by the Express Scripps owned pharmacy. Meanwhile, Express Scripps has offered unaffiliated pharmacies such terrible terms that since twenty twenty-two nearly thirteen thousand retail pharmacies have just left the TRICARE network they just said we can't be part of this. So, Assistant Secretary Bass, you lead the Defense Health Agency, which oversees this contract that I'm talking about. Are you concerned that Express Scripts appears to be steering service members to the pharmacies that it owns and overcharging American taxpayers.

Thank you, Ranking, uh, Member Warren. Uh, I appreciate your your support, and I understand that this is an important issue. Uh, the department continues to to look at this in review, and as you're aware, this PBM is uh is uh, TRICARE PBM is different than a normal PBM. It is a, it provides administrative services only. It's a contract meta uh management mechanism for for the departments. It does claims, mail-order, pharmacy, and has paid a fixed fee for each of the prescriptions. The Department of War controls the uh their pricing and retains the cost savings. We understand the concerns and we welcome the opportunity to work with you and your staff on using.

I I'm sorry, could I have an answer to my question? I am concerned that we've got pharmacy manager here who competes with a bunch of America's pharmacies, and it's the one that is doing the pricing, and it's the one that's deciding who else the competition will be. That seems like to me a perfect way to be able to advantage yourself, disadvantage everyone else. And look, I'm not just making that up. I've got two pieces of evidence, four hundred and eighty-four dollars more per average that uh we're paying now on these generic drugs, and thirteen thousand pharmacies across this country that have just said, you won't pay me enough, so I've gotta leave the entire system, which cuts down on service for our military members. And are you telling me, oh, you're thinking about it? You've had twenty years to think about this.

We we the department continues to to evaluate this this budget. It over it uh it reviews and and uh works with the contractor to ensure that is within the guidelines of the contractor.

But you're working with the contractor. How's that working out? How do you explain four hundred and eighty-four dollars on average more for prescription dru- uh for generic drugs?

Thank you, Senator. I'm not aware of the the uh cost discrepancy.

OK, then how do you explain thirteen thousand pharmacies actually leaving the whole system just saying you won't even pay me enough to be make it worthwhile?

The contractor is meeting its contractual requirements.

But

What? You don't What are you saying about thirteen thousand pharmacies leaving this whole system, and they won't do any, they can't fill prescriptions now for our military and for our veterans? You're OK with that?

No, ma'am, our priority is to make sure all of our beneficiaries, the nine point six million, get the coverage that they deserve and the benefits they deserve.

Well,

And

I think they deserve a lot more than what you're delivering for them and I wanna know when you're gonna get better at this. Look, what we're talking about here is a blatant conflict of interest. Our job in this Senate subcommittee is oversight. And that's why it is, for years now, I've been calling for more transparency to ensure that Express Scripts isn't favoring itself and its own subsidiaries and under-reimbursing the independent pharmacies in the hopes that it can drive them out of the TRICARE business altogether and just have more of the business for themselves. I have been met with obstruction every step of the way from our own Department of Defense. So let me ask you another question, Secretary Bass. Will you disclose the differences between TRICARE reimbursement rates and fees and other price concessions between what it's paying pharmacies and what it's paying itself?

Yeah, thank you, Rick and Remember, Warren. I I commit to working with you and your staff in providing the data that you're working

You'll give me that data.

I will work with you and your staff.

I'm gonna hold you to that. So, Express Scripts' pattern of bad behavior speaks for itself. In addition to the news reports that I've already mentioned, an audit of the uh office, an audit by the Office of Inspector General for the Office of Personnel Management, found that Express Scripts overcharged American Postal Workers Union and the Federal Employees Health Benefits program by about forty-five million dollars. And the Government Accountability Office found, quote, " persistent inconsistencies" in the data that Express Scripts provided to DOD, which DOD is supposed to be validating on its own, but failed to catch. So, Secretary Bass, given the long history of infractions by Express Scripps that I just read to you. Will you commit to annual audits of the TriCare pharmacy contract to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not being wasted?

I com- I commit to, uh, yes, I commit to doing, um, annual review of the contract.

Good. And then will you let us see those annual audits?

I commit to working with you and your staff.

No, will you let us see them? I don't wanna hear about them and hear your summary. I wanna see the audits. Do I have that commitment?

I will work with you and your staff.

Is that a yes?

Yes.

Good. Thank you, that wasn't so bad. Um, look. The, thank you, Mister Chairman. I apologize for running over. I just wanna finish up by saying the current TRICARE contract with Express Scripts expires in twenty twenty nine and DOD right now is in the acquisition planning phase for the next Con- generation contract. As it builds the requirements for this new contract, DOD cannot continue to ignore this conflict of interest that arises when a company owns both a PBM, that is the one directing the payments, and a pharmacy. That has got to stop. And in the meantime, existing contracts should be regularly audited and subjected to much greater transparency to try to beat this kind of conflict out of the system. I look forward to working with DOD on this and serving the best interests of the nine million American service members, veterans and their families who are depending on us. Thank you. I appreciate it, Secretary Bass. Thank you, Mister Chairman, and thank you for the extra time.

Thank you, Senator Warren. Senator Perrono.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Secretary Tata, the uh Trump regime has repeatedly attempted to reshape our federal vaccine policies in direct contract conflict with science and leading public health experts. Now it seems uh those misguided, as far as I'm concerned, policies are seeping into the military first. Secretary Hicks has waived the COVID-19 vaccine requirements and now, just last month, he overturned the annual flu vaccine mandate uh which has been DOD policy since the early nineteen fifties over seventy years uh of course there is a reason for the flu vaccine requirement military personnel frequently live and work in close quarters particularly on ships making them highly susceptible to rapid disease transmission do you know who funded the invention of the first flu vaccine

Senator, thank you for the question. Thank you for the concern uh for our soldiers. Uh, I believe World War One was uh the US Army created the flu vaccine and uh

Yes. So the US Army in the nineteen thirties and forties, and do you know why the army did this?

Uh, because uh they wanted to stop the uh spread of infectious disease.

So does that concern still not exist? Because uh what's gonna happen when getting the flu vaccine becomes optional? In fact uh what new peer review literature did the department rely on to support overturning the flu vaccine requirement and how many service members of the one point, I don't know, that millions? There are one point eight million, two point eight million active duty and

Mm-hmm.

like almost a million reserves and as a civilians. within DOD. So uh what peer review study led to this change in the vax the flu vaccine requirement and how many service members do you expect will now not get the flu vaccine as a result of this optional policy?

Senator, thank you for the opportunity to um comment on this. Uh we uh under the secretary's guidance uh went to the services uh we asked the services to come back to us with a list of exceptions to the policy uh that uh they um wish to us to pursue. We are collecting those exceptions right now, and as you might expect, the services have come back with a robust set of exceptions, uh that we are still in the pre-decisional draft stage.

Excuse me.

We're talking about submarines, we're talking about ships, we're talking about basic training, we're talking about ranger school, we're talking about

Just so I understand, Mister Secretary, so these exceptions are those services who are saying that they want

This this is in draft pre-decisional. They've come back asking for these exceptions to the policy

Exceptions to the no uh

that we will then take to the secretary for his final approval.

OK, I'm gonna have to ask you again, just so uh there's cla- clarity. The exceptions are to secretary Hicks says these are option of uh this is an optional vaccine. So The services are submitting exceptions that they want their submariners, for example, to have to get the flu vaccine. Are those the exceptions that are being gathered now?

Uh, I I can't list them all all for you right now,

Yes or no?

but the exceptions that we are gathering are to be able to vaccinate for flu prior to deployment on on a ship,

OK.

for example, but there are several other exceptions that are being requested.

Yeah, I I understand. I just wanna make sure that there are some service services that have decided that this optional policy is uh going to probably affect readiness. You can't have a flu outbreak in the submarine, for example, so I think that that is um that's warranted. But you did mention peer-reviewed literature that led to Secretary Hexa making this policy change to begin with. Are you aware of any peer review studies that led to this change?

S- Senator, uh, what I'm aware of is the, um, troop morale, uh, and, uh, significant backlash from the imposition from the Biden era, uh, on the COVID vaccine and the mandatory, uh, COVID vaccine and the expulsion of lots of talent for refusing to take that vaccine, that experimental vaccine that was unlawful as implemented. And so I think what uh the secretary is trying to get at is uh restoring trust and faith, restoring the warrior ethos within the force by saying that

OK, so he had his reasons, but they were not based on any peer reviewed literature. It was based on uh the the um you know, there is such a thing as leadership. that will say to the service members, this is for your health protection, it is uh it is science-based, et cetera, but that didn't happen,

He did it in full consultation with Health Affairs,

so Yeah.

with me, with the with the team uh to to make the best decision possible to restore trust and faith in the wake of the COVID vaccine mandate.

Yeah. So basically it was ideologically-based, not peer-review-based. I have a question about women in combat. Can I continue? I can't tell from my clock whether I've uh my time is up. I think it, is it up? Can you Yeah. Is that reconfusion? Reconfusion? Okay, I could I just mention something about women in combat?

Yeah, I'm sure it's in.

Yeah. Yeah, what is that? Yeah, that's right. So, as you know, Secretary Hickson has asked for a review, a study on the appropriateness of women in combat roles, and you recently issued a memo mandating the review of female service members' performance in combat arms units. Uh, a- as you know women can serve in combat units, uh, provided that they meet all of the physical requirements that everybody else has to meet. So, I just wanna ask you, uh, should every service member, regardless of gender, be permitted to serve in any role, including the combat arms, if they meet the established standards? Yes or no?

Senator, uh, what we are doing is reviewing the effectiveness of ground combat units that have been integrated uh ten years after integration just like we did Goldwater Nichols' just like we did, don't ask, don't tell,

Excuse me.

just like we did blended retirement system.

Do you think that anyone who meets the physical requirements

So, so this is ten years later.

should be able to serve in any role to which they meet the physical and other, whatever requirements there are, yes or no? You can't seem to actually

I, I, I'm not sure I understand your question, Senator.

Whether or not any, okay, we'll repeat, should every service member, regardless of gender, be permitted to serve in any role including the combat arms, if they meet the established standards.

The established standards. Yes, Senator.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you. Uh, S- Secretary Todd, traumatic brain injuries continue to be a huge problem. Uh, you see anything that we're doing that's helping uh, restore and uh, you know, just improve, you know, the identification number one of brain problems. Because we've all seen that. And then, are we making any progress on getting the health recovery time faster than in the past?

Chairman, thank you for your question. Uh, yes, a traumatic brain injury is is a serious concern, um, in the in the force among our military service members. It can have long-lasting effects long after they've they've had the initial uh concussion, or or injury. Uh, we uh are working diligently with the military services to ensure that we have guidelines out there concerning uh exposure, particularly blast uh blast exposure um but also other types of traumatic brain things that can can uh cause traumatic brain injury. We put out guidelines, we have a reference um an information guide that addresses specific weapon systems that our service members are exposed to on a regular basis, outlining uh the area of the blast the standoff distance required um the the minimization of using or being uh close to these uh weapons systems minimizing what they have to do to maintain their proficiency emphasizing uh the use of simulators if possible uh in order to insure that they are proficient uh we are also looking uh and working with our acquisition folks to make sure that as we develop new weapons systems uh the impact of blast overpressure those impacts on traumatic brain injury are considered when developing the weapon system so that we have some sort of mitigating measures. Uh, in addition, um, the, the secretary recently signed, uh, the Warfighter Optimization, Performance Optimization Directive, which focuses on total, uh, the total readiness of our force and looks at their health, and part of this is brain, uh, brain trauma and traumatic brain, brain injuries. Uh, we are working, again, with all the service. We are also working directly with, with specific units in the field. In fact, we we just uh had a briefing from from the Ranger Regiment where they were doing, using their own local tactical uh initiatives to see what they could do to mitigate, uh for example, breaching operations or or or or confined exp explosive operations. And we and they came up with a number of very innovative uh ideas on how to do it. Uh in addition, uh since uh as you know our Ranger Regiment are are are are airborne units, uh they have a a a mouthpiece that uh has a wifi uh factor or or component in it so every time one of their soldiers jumps uh it can automatically automatically uh record if there was what it could perceive as some sort of a traumatic injury and it automatically starts broadcasting and they can't hide it because you know some some some troops just don't wanna report it they wanna keep soldiering on uh and so that is hooked in with some of the initiatives they're doing we're taking that and looking at it to see if we can expand that not only to other airborne units but across the forest. In fact, the S- the Under Secretary uh recently uh uh decided that we should work with our, the ODEA schools, the OIA schools, in order to um use some of these mouth guards to see if we can identify any risk to the to the children of our service members when they're playing sports, in some of our schools. So we're trying to look both with our service members but across the forest to identify any of these things that impact or ca- could cause traumatic brain injury.

Thank you. Uh, Mister Deal, only a small percentage of uh Americans currently qualify for military service without a waiver. Many of these young Americans who are motivated and want to serve, but they encounter a lot of times administrative hurdles and waiver decisions during their process. From your perspective, what are the biggest bottlenecks in the system today, and what more should the department uh do to be streamlined in medical, evaluations and waiver processing so that we are not necessarily delaying or disqualifying otherwise capable ap- applicants.

Mister Chairman, I appreciate you highlighting that issue and the chance to speak to it. It's a very concerning thing that so few young Americans today are qualified to serve. Something we need to be very careful about is for one, maintaining high uncompromising standards, so where we have a very good reason to ensure that you meet a minimum qualification, need to uphold that for the good of the service and for the protection of the individual. We also need to make sure that we don't just have needless requirements because they're historical relics. So one of the things we must continue to do through our medical accession records pilot program is carefully review each of the medical requirements we enforce when a young American man or woman tries to join and make sure that requirement makes sense that it's connected to the battlefield requirements that it contributes to lethality, and if that's a historical requirement that doesn't make an impact on the battlefield, we should get rid of it. We've had success over the last couple years reducing some of the requirements in this pilot program, letting young people come in despite the fact that they had a pre-existing condition that in the past would not have been wavered, and we see very strong results from that program. We are continuing to actively review conditions, even just last year we removed several of the existing conditions. There were automatic disqualifications. to ensure that if you're actually qualified to serve, that we give you that opportunity. I can speak to personal experience. I had an ACL reconstruction in college. When I applied to the army, I was automatically disqualified, needed a waiver to come in, and I'm so grateful that I was given the chance to serve, and I was able to serve in airborne special operations units for ten years. And that w- that was the right decision, to make sure there wasn't a needless disqualification. And we did continue to do that, to carefully filter and take advantage of the talent that's volunteering to serve in our department.