Hearings to examine the current readiness of the Joint Force.

The hearing will come to order. I want to thank our very distinguished witnesses for this readiness subcommittee to receive testimony on the current readiness of the United States Armed Forces. This is certainly one of the most important topics we address each year. In many ways, it sets the foundation for every other discussion we have as it relates to defense and the military. It also helps this committee prepare for the markup of the National Defense Authorization Act, which we do each year. This year has shown us that lethality, sustainment, and readiness are more important than ever. Without these factors, we lose deterrence. Ensuring readiness, we can take the fight to the enemy at any time and place of our choosing. First, I want to acknowledge with solemn gratitude the six fallen heroes that have been lost in action during Operation Epic Fury. I know that our witnesses feel the same. We want to appreciate their sacrifice and pray for their families. Second, I want to thank our witnesses for their willingness to be here today. When you look across the dais here, there is literally decades and decades of exceptional service from all of you gentlemen and ladies and your families. So I want to thank you for that. I think I can speak for all my colleagues, we hold our deployed members under your leadership in our thoughts right now. They're protecting our nation day in and day out, not just in the Middle East, but all over the world. So I want to talk about the current conflict briefly, as I'm sure there'll be questions on that. Iran has been a catalyst for terrorism, mayhem, and violence across the Middle East and the world for decades. The terrorist leaders of Iran have, in essence, been at war with the United States since the Ayatollahs took over Iran in 1979. They have killed and maimed thousands of American service members over the years. The list is long. The Beirut Marine barracks, Khobar Towers, the sophisticated roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan literally cost the lives of thousands of American service members and killed certainly just with the IEDs over 600. The regime has recently attempted to assassinate President Trump when he was running for president in 2024, and we know that they've attempted to assassinate former Secretary Pompeo and former National Security Advisor John Bolton. That's why it's been a bipartisan goal of every president since the Iranian Revolution to ensure that the largest state sponsor of terrorism doesn't have nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles. The world is not safe with an Iran with relentless nuclear and terrorist ambitions and an expanded ballistic missile inventory. This current conflict raises and reminds us of a number of critical challenges. At front and center is our munitions and the defense industrial base. The conflicts we are observing, not just in Iran, but in Ukraine as well, have underscored the importance of sustained production capacity in the United States. At the briefing we received yesterday from the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, they declared undeniably that we have sufficient current stocks to carry on and win decisively in Operation Epic Fury. I think that's an important message for everybody around the world to make sure other adversaries of ours don't see this as a moment where they can take action in other parts of the world. But we must ensure that our stockpiles, surge capacity, and organic industrial base are sufficient to support a prolonged high-end fighting in other theaters for future conflicts, if they should arise. We should also not lose sight that we are meeting at a time when the global threat environment is as complex and dangerous as it has been in decades. Strategic competition with China continues to intensify by investing heavily in capabilities designed to challenge our ability to project power and sustain operations not just in the Indo-Pacific, but across the globe. Russia's war in Ukraine has reshaped the security landscape in Europe and in the homeland. Particularly in my state, we see increased aggression from Russia and China in the Arctic and the North Pacific. This is a chart I put out on a number of times. We had a field hearing just last weekend in Anchorage with the Commerce Committee, where I chair the subcommittee in charge of the Coast Guard. And I displayed this chart. These are the recent ADIZ incursions, EEZ incursions by the Russian Air Force strategic bombers, Chinese Air Force, Chinese and Russian Navy. The unprecedented element of this chart are the green ones. Those are joint Russian-Chinese operations into our ADIZ, into our EEZ, strategic bomber task forces, joint naval task forces. At the hearing last week, a very distinguished retired four-star general, Joe Ralston, former NATO commander, said there's no way that the Chinese and Russians would be doing joint ops into America's Arctic and North American ADIZ and waters without full approval of Xi Jinping and Putin. So these are aggressive actions that we must keep in mind. Indeed, Russia continues to expand and modernize its Arctic military footprint, deep water ports, airfields, radar systems, forward operating bases. The Russians have over 54 icebreakers, many of which are nuclear-powered and weaponized. China, despite having no Arctic territory, calls itself a quote near-Arctic state, whatever that means, and is rapidly expanding its polar capabilities. Over the past two years, we've seen a dramatic increase in these kind of incursions into our air and waters in the United States, in Alaska. As a matter of fact, just two weeks ago, we had another Russian strategic bomber task force into our ADIZ, where the United States military did an exceptional job as they always do, detecting and intercepting these Russian Bear bombers. We should be clear that when we talk about readiness, we also need to talk about homeland readiness right now. Secretary Rubio in our briefing yesterday said we should assume Iran and its terrorist proxies are planning terrorist actions around the world, including in our homeland, which is why I think particularly given the current circumstances in terms of our own homeland defense, we need to resource the Department of Homeland Security to prevent any kind of homeland attack from Iran or anyone else. Every day DHS is not funded is another day U.S. citizens are vulnerable. I know the White House is working closely and has put forward offers with my Democratic colleagues. I certainly hope that we are not going to defund, not we, the Senate Democrats defund Homeland Security. We need to fund Homeland Security now. This is a national security issue, a readiness issue that we can fix today, and it needs to happen. But we need to do more to prepare and ensure readiness. I'm going to be asking the panelists the issues relating to personnel and recruiting. We have gone through a crisis. We've come out of that crisis, but I think there's it's important to have lessons learned what just happened over the last few years. Second, we have aging platforms and maintenance challenges in all our services. We need to be able to get in front of those. Third, the issue of sustainment and contested logistics and force projection capabilities is another challenge and a new reality for all of our services as well. To our witnesses, I look forward to your candid assessment of where readiness stands today, not just in terms of reported metrics, but in real-world capability. Where are the gaps? Where are the risks? And what actions are required in the near term to ensure that the United States military remains fully prepared to deter and, if necessary, defeat our adversaries. So again, I want to thank the witnesses for being here today. We look forward to your testimony, and I now want to turn the comments over to my ranking member, Senator Hirono.

Thank you very much. Gentlemen, thank you very much for your dedicated service to our nation, and especially in these turbulent times, I thank the service members in each of your respective branches. Ms. Maurer, I look forward to having you here with us every year. Thank you for the constant and effective work by you and your team at GAO. I begin by acknowledging the tragic loss of multiple U.S. service members' lives in the Middle East. Our thoughts are with them, their families, their loved ones, along with the thousands of other Americans who are serving in harm's way even as we speak. We must also acknowledge how we got here. President Trump launched airstrikes without so much as consulting with Congress. What's worse, we are given multiple explanations for why we are at war with Iran, from getting ahead of an imminent Iran strike to eliminating their nuclear capability to affecting regime change, they can't get the story straight. As Leader Schumer said, when the rationale for war keeps shifting, the strategy is missing. Moreover, just this morning, Secretary Hicks had said we are just getting started. This lack of strategy directly increases the risk to our service members while negatively impacting military readiness. Now readiness is a fleeting commodity in the military, even with well-executed training cycles, it must be managed ruthlessly to balance operational needs with force sustainment. Our witnesses have shown that a well-trained, well-led military can execute a wide range of tasks effectively. It is incumbent upon you all to lay out without equivocation your service's current state of readiness and the impact to its readiness of missions it is tasked to perform. This is particularly important when planned events like ship maintenance cycles, combined training exercises, and support to combatant command exercises are disrupted. It is also important to clearly articulate the cost and time to replace what stocks when they are employed. Standards are also critical component of training, and this administration has employed the term standards with great vigor. No one is opposed to well-defined task-based standards. Personally, I have confidence that the uniformed leadership of the military invests itself consistently over time to set and continuously review its training standards. However, the Secretary of Defense appears to be undertaking a personal attack on women in the military, more specifically women in close combat formations, by questioning standards. He is questioning your ability to man, train, and equip a ready force. He is questioning whether current physical fitness standards and unit effectiveness and cohesion are making your services less ready. I am very interested in your assessment in these areas. Just yesterday, we heard from the Department of Defense about their National Defense Strategy. And yes, the number one stated priority was defense of the homeland, a priority that has significant overlap with the Department of Homeland Security. In that regard, the DOD has handed over $2 billion to DHS in the last year alone for missions on the southern border. Not only does this drain military readiness and resources, it also depletes morale and diverts units from training and executing the full range of their core missions. Yet we are often told there are no adverse readiness impacts from deploying to the border. However, these deployments know no end in sight. You can't have it both ways. In reality, readiness challenges will only be further exacerbated by the war in Iran. We have already lost three aircraft to what sounds like a friendly fire incident in Kuwait, to the tune of a loss of almost a billion dollars in the three aircraft. And the joint force is burning through costly inventories of precision-guided munitions when they are already in short supply. Moreover, these munitions take a long time to replenish and risk being unavailable for the unforeseen contingencies elsewhere, particularly in the Indo-Pacific where we face a peer adversary, just as the chairman has indicated in his chart. To the witnesses on today's panel, I recognize you are in a precarious position. Four-star generals have been fired without cause over the last year, and we have repeatedly seen this administration blur lines, using the military in ways we haven't seen before. In other words, politicizing the military. While only one of you is a repeat witness from this hearing a year ago, each of you have earned the four stars on your shoulders. We rely on your experience, as do the service members you lead, to candidly speak truth to power and give us your best military advice. Especially in these unprecedented times, decisions have consequences, and short-sighted decisions can have dangerous consequences, dangerous long-term consequences. Launching another war in the Middle East, improperly using the military for DHS operations on a non-reimbursable basis, these misguided policy decisions have real tangible costs on readiness and our ability to deter major adversaries like China and Russia. To my colleagues, we can and must do something to reassert our constitutional authority. It is Congress that declares war, not the president. And as far as I'm concerned, it begins by voting for Senator Kaine's war powers resolution. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Senator Hirono. And now I'm going to ask each witnesses, or each of our witnesses, for five minutes of testimony. You can submit a longer written testimony for the record, and we'll begin from left to right here. So the Vice Chief of the Army, General LaNeve, the floor is yours. Thank you, Senator Hirono. And now I'm going to ask each witnesses, or each of our witnesses for five minutes of testimony, you can submit a

Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Hirono, thank you for the opportunity to appear before this subcommittee today. We're grateful for your engagement on issues that shape the lives of our soldiers and their families. Every decision I make as Vice Chief begins and ends with one question: Does this make our soldiers more lethal and ready to fight and win when called upon? Today, over 108,000 soldiers are deployed or forward-postured across 160 countries, securing our interests in the Western Hemisphere, deterring aggression in the Indo-Pacific, and responding to threats worldwide. In the Middle East, our soldiers are operating in a complex and dangerous environment amid active conflict with Iran and its proxies. They're defending U.S. forces and partners, intercepting missiles and drones, and protecting critical infrastructure. Our sustainment formations are moving fuel, munitions, and medical support across the theater, while our command posts are integrating joint fires and intelligence to ensure rapid response to evolving threats. Brave Americans have been killed and wounded in the line of duty. Their loss is felt across our formations and in communities across this nation. To their families, we extend our deepest condolences and our enduring support. Operations overseas are sustained by the command structure and ready forces we maintain at home. We consolidated Army North and South into the Western Hemisphere Command to create a single unified headquarters responsible for homeland defense, while retaining the capacity to generate and deploy forces globally in response to crisis. In the Indo-Pacific, the Army maintains 91,000 troops and committed $1.3 billion to the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. We're decisively modernizing our full spectrum of capabilities to counter any pacing threat. And commanding in Korea showed me that years of combined training and shared risk with regional partners creates relationships that cannot be forged in crisis. These enduring bonds, built through sustained commitment, underpin our operations in the region and globally. We're building readiness for the future fight at our combined training centers. And having had the opportunity to command of the operations group at the Joint Readiness Training Center, I know the value of our CTCs. It's where we train our soldiers to fight against any adversary in the mud, to solve complex problems, and to test our latest systems. But we cannot field modern kit while sustaining aging systems that consume time and manpower. Divesting legacy platforms reduces maintenance and demand that falls hardest on our junior soldiers and returns critical time to training. This is why we've restructured our acquisition processes to reduce the distance between soldiers' field experience and program decisions from years to months. We're accelerating development and fielding critical systems like the next-generation command and control. It's how we'll extend our operational reach, connecting sensors, shooters, and commanders during large-scale combat operations. And we've selected the 4th and the 25th Infantry Divisions to test these systems now, while they still deter in the Pacific. We're developing the XM30 infantry fighting vehicle, unveiled the M1E3 Abrams prototype years ahead of schedule, and fielded the AMPV to replace the M113, which entered service in 1960, seven years before I was born. In Army aviation, we're on track to deliver a prototype of the MV-75 future long-range assault aircraft by FY27, advancing the speed, range, and survivability required for future operations. The next-generation equipment we're fielding is only as good as the industrial base that produces and sustains it. We continue to modernize the OIB through our 15-year plan, and we're expanding industry partnership through enhanced use leases and advanced manufacturing. But after 36 years, I've never seen a unit's readiness determined by a depot or its equipment alone. What I have seen repeatedly is how we treat our soldiers shapes whether we retain the experienced ones and whether the force we're building reflects the standards we claim to uphold. That standard includes $3 billion in infrastructure investments throughout 2026. We're working to improve nutrition for our soldiers, rolling out campus-style dining facilities across five installations and more to come. We've accelerated our holistic health and fitness programs to all active, Guard, and Reserve units. And these investments are having an impact. It shows in our recruiting numbers. Our numbers are up and continue to surpass last year's target. Thank you for your continued support as we sustain the best army the world has ever seen. That will not change, and this we will defend. Thank you.

Thank you, General. Next witness is the Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Kilby. Admiral.

Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Hirono, subcommittee members, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the readiness of the United States Navy. Your oversight and authorization of funding ensures the Navy is ready when the nation calls. That readiness was put to a test this past year as the Navy conducted combat operations and supported the joint force in achieving national objectives. In Operations Rough Rider and Midnight Hammer, the Navy conducted strikes against our adversaries and defended our allies in the Middle East. In the Atlantic, the Navy played a key role in Operation Absolute Resolve. In the Pacific, our sailors operate every day deterring China and building partnerships. The Navy continues to maintain unbroken strategic deterrence with our ballistic missile submarines. As we speak, the Navy, both afloat and ashore, is supporting Operation Epic Fury. Last night in the Indian Ocean, a U.S. fast attack submarine sank an Iranian combatant. Around the globe, we are ready to defend the homeland, deter threats, and if called upon, to fight and win. To ensure our sailors and platforms continue to meet the demands of today's rapidly evolving threats, we are thinking, acting, and operating differently. And this starts with our Navy's primary weapon system, our sailors. In fiscal year 2025, we set the goal to enlist 40,600 new sailors. We exceeded that goal and shipped 44,096 sailors to Recruit Training Command. I'm confident we will meet our 2026 goal of recruiting 45,000 sailors. To improve retention, we made personnel policy changes that led to thousands of sailors who were considering separation to continue their service. These efforts resulted in reduced gaps at sea from 23,000 in October 2025 to 18,000 last month, with a goal of 13,000 at the end of the fiscal year. We are focused on improving sailors' quality of service. Through a new initiative, we are providing permanent shore-based housing so that no sailor is required to live aboard a ship. As of last month, approximately 4,500 sailors have transitioned from living afloat to residing ashore. Last year, we reduced our unmet need of childcare from 2,200 to 1,500. Our fitness facilities are now open 24/7, and we, like the Army, are expanding our meal selections and healthy options in our galley. We are improving platform readiness by reducing maintenance delays, investing in Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program, and developing our civilian workforce. We are leveraging advanced technologies such as conditions-based maintenance and advanced additive manufacturing. The Navy continues to drive towards our goal of 80 percent combat surge ready ships, aircraft, and submarines with urgency and accountability. However, I remain concerned with the material condition of our amphibious ships, and I am working closely with the ACMC to improve here. To meet the high-end demand of forward operations, the Navy is changing how we build, equip, and sustain our fleet. The Golden Fleet initiative is our plan to deliver the best and most capable platforms, to revitalize our maritime industrial base, and to change how we acquire ships. Your continued support of our Navy is vital in this initiative's success. In particular, expanded multi-year procurement, guaranteed purchase commitments, and predictable funding streams enable us to achieve speed and scale. These legislative authorities allow us, allow our maritime partners to expand production capacity, modernize facilities, and strengthen supply chains. In closing, your leadership and partnership are critical to the Navy's continued success and improvement. On behalf of our sailors, civilians, and families around the world, thank you. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, Admiral. Our next witness is the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Gering.

Israel is a reason for this war! America does not want to fight this war for Israel! Come on, let's go! America does not want to send its sons and daughters to war for Israel! Your inability to name that shows that you've failed as leaders! This is wrong! Stop! And you know no one wants to fight for Israel!

Just a reminder to all our witnesses...

Please stand up as a Marine!

The Capitol Police will escort any protesters out of the hearing room. We ask for calm in these hearings.

For Israel! No more! No more! No more! No more! No more! Stop the war! Stop the war! Stop the war! Stop the war! Stop the war! Stop the war! Stop the war! Stop the war!

Order. Order. Order. I'll ask, I'll ask the audience to please sit down. Capitol Police will escort any protesters...

A U.S. Senator just broke the hand of a Marine! And you're not even looking back! Any of you four-star generals! Look at yourselves! You're shameful! Stop now! I'm a robot!

We'll need, well I'm calling on the Capitol Police to remove any other protesters. All protesters either leave or be escorted by the Capitol Police. General, floor is yours, sir.

Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Hirono, distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I'm honored to represent the Marine Corps and discuss our current warfighting readiness. The Marine Corps provides unique value to the nation and joint force. We are both the nation's global response force and a persistent integrated stand-in force in the Indo-Pacific. This combination is at the heart of our force design and ensures we are prepared to meet the challenges outlined in the National Defense Strategy. Our traditional role as a crisis response force is embodied by the amphibious ready group and Marine expeditionary unit, most often referred to as the ARG/MEU. This sea-based capability provides our nation with decision space and options, changes the behavior of bad actors, and delivers swift and decisive action when required. Our Commandant has set the North Star of providing combatant commanders with a global 3.0 MEU/ARG presence. This equates to ARG/MEU deployments from both the East and West Coast and an episodically deployed ARG/MEU from the forward-deployed naval forces in Japan. Building on this, force design has created stand-in forces that are purpose-built to operate persistently within contested maritime spaces. These forward-deployed forces provide a continuous presence, enable the joint force, and contribute to deterrence with allies and partners. We are not without challenges, but we're getting after them. In partnership with the Navy, we are working to improve the availability of amphibious warfare ships. We are also working to field organic littoral connectors. Thanks to your support and oversight, we have made significant progress in this area with the procurement of medium landing ship, or LSM. And we need to continue to move forward with a sense of urgency in both areas: amphibious warship readiness availability and littoral mobility. Despite these challenges, your Marines are ready. Once again, the Marine Corps has made its recruiting mission in FY25 and is ahead of mission for FY26. It's a testament to the quality of the Marines we select to find the next generation and the critical resources this committee helps provide. This success in recruiting is the essential first step. Our institutional commitment to standards-based training and achieving brilliance in the basics is what forges our warfighting edge. And this relentless focus on fundamental excellence is precisely what enables us to remain the world's premier fighting force. We also recognize that taking care of Marines and their families is a warfighting necessity that directly impacts readiness and retention. Our Barracks 2030 initiative is making tangible progress, thanks in a large part to the continued support of this committee. In the last fiscal year, we completed four new barracks, began construction on eight others, awarded renovations for an additional 11, and outfitted 159 barracks with new furnishings. We're also tackling childcare challenges head-on. We have implemented key recruitment and retention incentives for our direct care employees. These incentives include 100 percent childcare discount, increased salaries, and a priority placement transfer program that allows military spouses to seamlessly move between installation child development centers when their service member executes permanent change of station orders. Finally, I'm proud to report to you that for a third consecutive year, your Marine Corps has earned a clean audit opinion. This is a direct reflection to our commitment to fiscal stewardship and demonstrates our accountability for every taxpayer dollar. In conclusion, the Marine Corps appreciates the continued congressional oversight and support for the Commandant's priorities, which remain essential for building enduring readiness across the total force. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today, and I look forward to your questions. in support for the commandant's priorities, which remain essential for building enduring readiness across the total force. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you, General. Our next witness is the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Lamontagne.

Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Hirono, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to talk about the readiness of your United States Air Force. As General Wilsbach testified, the most important thing the Air Force does for the joint force and for the nation is to fly and fix aircraft so that we are ready to answer the nation's call. The Air Force's lethality depends on the professionalism of our airmen, the capability of our equipment, and the skill at which we bring them together. Airmen are our most precious resource. The active duty, Air National Guard, Reserve, and civilian workforce are why the United States Air Force is effective at a moment's notice. We are investing in them to keep the Air Force the most capable and lethal in the world. We updated our fitness policy to push our airmen to new levels and ensure they are ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with our joint partners on the toughest battlefields. We are also increasing our airmen's quality of life by updating dormitories and child development care centers. We strive to make the Air Force an unmatched place to serve. We are meeting our recruitment goals, bringing in talented men and women from across the country. We are also seeing strong retention numbers across the force. Importantly, the Air Force is on track to train 1,500 pilots per year to expand our flying corps. From the perspective of equipment, our outstanding airmen fix our platforms and keep the Air Force running. They need the right logistical support to do their job. To that end, the Air Force is leveraging the weapon system sustainment account to increase aircraft availability, which allows our aviators to get the reps and sets they need to build competence. While we are working to be more ready today than yesterday, we are modernizing to be even better tomorrow. We are recapitalizing our ground-based strategic deterrent, fighter, bomber, and tanker aircraft, as well as the command and control architectures that bring them together. We appreciate the acquisition reforms supported by this subcommittee that are allowing us to develop capabilities faster. The B-21, F-47, and collaborative combat aircraft will present our adversaries with dilemmas they cannot solve. The lethality of your Air Force is highest when we exercise our well-trained airmen with capable equipment. The Air Force takes this aspect of our job very seriously. At the tactical level, our airmen are practicing agile combat employment and preparing to fight in exercises like Bamboo Eagle. Last summer, the Department of the Air Force employed more than 400 aircraft and 15,000 personnel across 50 locations in the Pacific to improve our ability to fight. Our airmen are ready to respond to our nation's needs. In conclusion, operations Midnight Hammer, Absolute Resolve, and Epic Fury demonstrate that in coordination with our joint partners, your Air Force is the most capable and lethal Air Force on the planet. We will focus on taking care of airmen, sustaining the fleet, and making acquisitions for the future to stay ahead of our potential adversaries. Your Air Force will fix and fly aircraft to deter potential adversaries and to win our nation's wars. I look forward to answering your questions and partnering with you to improve your Air Force.

Thank you, General. Our next witness is the Vice Chief of Space Operations, General Bratton.

Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Hirono, distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to talk to you today about the United States Space Force. Recent events around the world clearly demonstrate the importance of the Space Force as part of the joint force. With guardians both in garrison and deployed in harm's way, our need to generate readiness remains critical. In the past year, we've closed on many items to increase our readiness. We put on orbit two global positioning system spacecraft to enhance our navigation and timing, two geosynchronous space situational awareness program spacecraft to increase our domain awareness, and 42 data transport layer spacecraft to build the backbone for our missile warning capability. Along with our commercial partners, we've executed 170 launches this year, and the launch enterprise counts three new entrants as significant progress. Your Space Force has authorized the early use of new radar, has upgraded optical surveillance systems to better track adversary activity on orbit. We've operationally accepted additional systems in domain awareness, electromagnetic warfare, and missile warning that enhance our capabilities in those mission areas. We stood up our officer training course to baseline all of our officers in space, cyber, intelligence, and acquisitions, and we built a program to provide initial qualification training specifically for our acquisition workforce. We've activated three mission deltas, eight system deltas, and two service components, and we are on track to meet our fiscal year 2026 accession goals. Our priority is clear: we must protect the joint force from space-enabled attack. To do this, Space Force guardians have participated in a variety of readiness-producing activities designed to ensure space superiority. Exercises like Flashpoint, Resolute Space, and Space Flag have been particularly helpful in generating readiness. As my colleagues here know and joint doctrine will attest, training is an essential component of readiness, and the Space Force is organizing to ensure we train our forces for combat. We're doing this by using the Space Force's force generation model, or SPAFORGEN, to deliberately carve out time for advanced training so that guardians are always ready. As Secretary Mack noted recently, guardians must be ready at any time for any threat across the entire spectrum of conflict. These new missions and our responsibilities to the joint force mean the Space Force must aggressively increase its end strength and infrastructure. We will need to double in size in the coming years to meet identified operational needs, as well as significantly increase our training facilities. Even as we prepare for current warfighting challenges, we are aggressively looking ahead at capability requirements for the future force. We've seen successes in our continued development in our operational test and training enterprise, including standing up a new system delta that will synchronize acquisition efforts for critical space training capabilities. Moving forward, our planned growth will require infrastructure for training as well as enablers needed to acquire and operate new systems. All of this will enhance our operational readiness in the years ahead. The Space Force continues to provide tremendous value to both the joint force and the nation. As General Saltzman said last week, on nearly every mission around the globe, the Space Force delivered on our operational promises to the joint force, providing unmatched combat capability from space to ensure combatant commanders can project power and meet our national military objectives. With your continued support, that value will grow as we work to build the service to meet these rapidly expanding requirements. Thank you.

Thank you, General. And last but not least is Diana Maurer, who's the Director of Defense Capabilities and Management at GAO.

Good afternoon, Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Hirono, and other members and staff. I'm pleased to be here today to discuss GAO's independent nonpartisan oversight of military readiness. And what we found is frankly a mixed picture. On the one hand, the United States is fortunate to have the strongest military in the world. But our service members often meet demanding mission needs despite several significant and enduring readiness problems. Over the course of several administrations, the military has overused and undermaintained too many weapon systems for too long. And for years, the services have stretched to meet demanding operational needs with fewer people, older equipment and facilities, and a shrinking industrial base. At the same time, the department has all too often not realistically planned for how to sustain ships, aircraft, ground vehicles, and other systems. And across the services, we found a lack of spare parts, maintainers, repair facilities, technical data, training, and other problems. And as a result, too many systems that taxpayers have spent billions to build and maintain are not mission capable. Prior to today's hearing, I had the privilege to meet with every single other witness at this table, and I know that everyone here is committed to improving sustainment and readiness. And so far, the department has implemented about 50 of the nearly 200 recommendations from the dozens of reports summarized in my statement for today. And implementing those recommendations have helped enhance readiness. For example, in response to our reports, the Army revamped how it addresses staffing shortages and trained soldiers who operate air and missile defense systems. The Navy overhauled the surface warfare officer career path and training, which helped improve retention and yielded more than $170 million in cost savings. The Air Force improved how it organizes and deploys its forces, and Space Force Guardians from different units now train together just like they would fight together. And the Marine Corps and the other services have made significant progress addressing the 50 recommendations we made to improve the condition of privatized housing and military barracks. The military will reap further benefits from implementing the nearly 150 open recommendations referenced in my statement for today. And in the coming months, we will issue new reports with new recommendations. We will pay particular attention to whether sustainment and readiness considerations keep pace with the department's efforts to revise and streamline its acquisition policies. In closing, GAO will continue to support this committee and the entire Congress. We will continue to develop recommendations that enhance military readiness, and we look forward for future hearings and opportunities to speak with you and your staff. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I look forward to addressing any questions you may have.

Great. Thank you, Ms. Maurer. I appreciate your testimony as always at this hearing. Let me begin by asking General LaNeve, I want to, there's press reports that Operation Epic Fury was using for the first time a low-cost unmanned attack system, a one-way attack drone. This is part of a trend, I think, a positive trend within our military to bring cutting-edge technology in an operational environment with speed and relatively low cost. Can you talk about the development of the Lucas drone, the timeline it took, and for any of the other vice chiefs, are there other next-generation capabilities that you want to highlight that you think are in that category of speed, effectiveness, efficiency in terms of the development of new and important weapon systems? General.

Sir, thanks for the, thanks for the question. So Admiral Cooper and team at CENTCOM did a fantastic job developing this and putting it into the service incredibly fast. It's a great example of, you know, why we went to our PAEs to get faster turns on producing equipment for our soldiers.

Are there any lessons learned? I mean, I know it's early days, but any lessons learned on how you're doing that and that you can replicate?

Sir, I think what, you know, there's going to be a lot of lessons learned over the next couple, you know, weeks as we come out of this and Admiral Cooper's team is going to feed this to us. I think it's going to help us see how fast we have to produce this at scale, how we have to work on our industrial base in order to help us do some of the advanced manufacturing to get these into the systems. We know we have to do this at scale. Thank you, sir.

Other witnesses on that issue in terms of next-generation capabilities that are being rapidly developed?

Chairman, thanks for the question. An example I can give you for the Marine Corps is our work with first-person view one-way attack drones. So these are small group one type drones that are obviously armed. And we have the Drone Dominance Task Force down in Quantico and the Marine Corps attack drone team have been working very hard on this to rapidly field a capability for a majority of the force, but starting with our infantry battalions. And they fielded over 1,000 systems. They're going to field about 3,000 more we think this month. And by the end of this month, every active duty infantry battalion in the Marine Corps should have this capability. And we look to continue to scale that, see what other type vendors might come forward with a capability, but it's something we're moving out with really quick, sir. Thank you.

Good. Admiral.

I think is an example of what you're getting after, but we've used examples from our sister services to have that counter-UAS capability which is so prevalent and and we're seeing today in Epic Fury. Sir, I'd just offer the Ford Strike Group deployed with, we talked about last year at this readiness committee, the want of directed energy, which we need to get after so we don't use our high-end munitions to deplete low-end threats to us. The Ford Strike Group deployed with a number of systems that we bolted on her that aren't completely integrated but are effective against counter-UAS. So being willing to field things fast, learn, and then spread across the force, we're going to spread that same capability on the West Coast Strike Group. I think is an example of what you're getting after, but we've used examples from our sister services to have that counter-UAS capability, which is so prevalent and we're seeing today in Epic Fury.

Good. Anyone else? General.

Chairman Sullivan, a couple years ago the Air Force developed the advanced precision kill weapon system. We made some adjustments to that.

Good. Anyone else? General.

Chairman Sullivan, a couple years ago the Air Force developed the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System. We made some adjustments to that to be clear and called it FALCO, an air-delivered munition that is on orders of magnitude cheaper but very effective, but orders of magnitude cheaper than other systems.

And is that being used now?

We got it into from idea into employment in about three months. And you can be rest assured that we are advancing other capabilities that we'd be happy to address with you at higher levels of classification.

Great. Good. General, okay. Yeah, do you have something, General? No, okay. Let me ask, I just wanted to touch briefly, General LaNeve, General George and a senior group of Army enlisted and Army generals were in Alaska just two weeks ago. Admiral, Admiral Kilby, you know ICEX is happening this week up in Alaska. Can you describe some of the work that you're doing in the Arctic and making our northern flank more secure? We talk about the Western Hemisphere, that includes the Arctic of course, but I'd like to get many takeaways from General George's visit. And Admiral, I'm always interested in what the ICEX goals are going to be.

Sir, thanks for the question and thank you for the support of the 11th Airborne. My daughter served in...

America has another airborne unit, we always like to remind people of that, it's in Alaska, not just the 82nd anymore.

Yes sir, I commanded the 82nd, there's a good healthy, you know, fight going back and forth.

That's what we want, good rivalry.

Sir, my daughter was in 1-25, you know, before this turned into 11th Airborne. That name is not, it's just not a name alone, it's a culture that's being developed up there, and it's an incredibly important culture for the identity of the unit. So we thank you for your support. We're learning a lot from the exercise that just took place. You know, a couple that were propagating across our formation, batteries, how the Arctic can drain batteries really fast and we have to get after technology to help us on that. And that's going to go across our formations. We're learning about equipment that's specialized for the Arctic. Our CATVs, you know, we have about 30 right now, we're going to try to scale up to 180 here over the next couple years. We know that those are incredibly effective in the Arctic. And the team up there is passing feedback back to us constantly on what they're learning up there, equipment, soldier clothing, and how to get this at scale for our team up there and to take those lessons and like I said, push it across the force. But we really appreciate the support from you up there, sir.

Great. I'm going to, Admiral, I'll defer that to the next round. I want to be respectful of my colleagues here, we went over. Senator Hirono.

Thank you. We are at war with Iran and Secretary Hicks said just today, we are just getting started. I want to ask each of you going down the line, starting with General LaNeve, what readiness impacts this war will cause for each of your services. And frankly, I don't know how you're supposed to gauge the impact on readiness when you don't know how long this war would last. As Secretary Hicks said, we are just getting started, but you should just tell us how you're going to gauge the impact on readiness for our services under those kinds of conditions. So I'd like to get your responses in terms of extended ship deployment, planes flying additional hours in hostile territory, and the rapid expenditure of precision-guided munitions, which were already in short supply. And before we go down the line, I'd like to ask each of you by the end of today if you each can send me via classified email a snapshot of your current munitions inventory, projected burn rates, and any magazine shifting you're doing to meet the demands of U.S. Central Command. So in response to the impact on readiness, why don't we go down the line starting with General LaNeve.

Ma'am, first, thank you for the question and to your second question, yes.

Are you speaking into the mic?

Yes ma'am, I am.

Can you... thank you.

Yeah, thank you ma'am. Ma'am, we build readiness for the COCOM commanders. So they're going to utilize the readiness and as they come back, we'll rebuild that readiness for our COCOM commanders again. Right now, we don't have a good estimate on what is being clearly burned. But you know, as the Title 10 part of this, this is the readiness that we're building for these type of contingencies.

Hey ma'am, thanks for the question. I would offer Ford as a great example of the flexibility of the Navy and I'll come back to your specific, but she started out deployed to the High North, she went to the Eastern Med, she went to the Gulf of America, and now she's back in the Eastern Med and supporting CENTCOM. So that extension will ultimately be about an 11-month deployment. So there'll be an impact on her return and the schedule for her maintenance availability so she's ready to go again. The good part about our public shipyards is they're adjusting that schedule, they're ready to bring our carrier back and maintain her. I would say the specific stats are 17 of the last 25 avails were completed within two weeks from a carrier perspective. So there is a cost, but we're ready to go turn that ship around and have her do what she needs to do, ma'am.

As far as the Ford, isn't the Ford already beyond the deployment that it was already on and now it's in the Middle East?

Yes, that's correct.

So, okay, we'll go down the line, but really, I mean, I would like your frank assessment on how are you supposed to determine impact on readiness if you don't know the extent of this war and what it's going to take, and as we are being told that we are now controlling the Iranian airspace, that means we have a lot more assets to effect that. So really, please, be frank with us. If you can't gauge the impact on readiness at this moment because you're not told how long this is going to... you should just tell us, please.

All right, ma'am, thanks. Much like General LaNeve said, under our Title 10 responsibilities, we do man, organize, train, equip, and certify any Marine formation going forward to any combatant commander worldwide, and that remains the case both in Central Command and the other combatant commands.

Ranking Member Hirono, just like my peers, it's a little too early to tell exactly what kind of impact it's going to have just based on where we are in the conflict. But we will absolutely commit to working with your team to provide details on munitions inventories as we go forward.

Ma'am, we do have Guardian support in both in-garrison and forward-deployed Space Forces Central working for CENTCOM. We'll get the readiness reporting here as they come in through the squadron reports and can update you on that as it comes in.

Senator, real quickly from the GAO perspective, obviously we don't have immediate oversight of what's happening in terms of the conflict, but we know from some of our prior work that every additional flying hour or steaming hour creates additional demands on the sustainment and maintenance enterprise down the road. So Admiral Kilby is on point with that. We also have ongoing... we have an ongoing review looking at the munitions inventory and how that compares with requirements. The team is writing that draft report and will have that completed in the course of the next couple of months. So once that's completed, we can definitely share that with you and your staff.

What I'm hearing from you is that it's a little too early to determine what the impact on readiness will be, which says to me that there may be another time when this subcommittee needs to have a hearing to get us updated. But can I also have your commitment that you will provide the information that I'm requesting regarding the via classified email? Yes? Let's go down the line.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you. We're going to second round.

Admiral Kilby, I had asked earlier about ICEX and Arctic operations, and then General Gering, I'd also like to get a sense from you, I know the Marine Corps is looking at ramping up some of its Arctic exercises and deployments in Alaska, and I'd like to get an update on that as well.

Hey, thank you, Chairman. I'm selfishly excited about ICEX, I'm hoping to go, I'm on the waitlist. But we have a set of experiments each year that we pursue, and as you know, it's a super challenging environment to be in. We dedicate two submarines generally to that. There's some work between them, but there's also environmental work and understanding the impact of sound propagation and how that affects our systems. So we get a ton out of that exercise, super important for us, and we appreciate the support to continue to do that.

Great. Thank you. General?

Chairman, thank you for the question for the Marine Corps. As you're aware, sir, we are participating in Arctic Edge today with an O-6 command element and other types of subordinate task-organized formations. And what we see in Alaska is certainly incredible advanced cold weather type training, but also the aviation and fires training we can get in Alaska is second to none. And we see that throughout the year, we will participate in many of the Flag series exercises where we get a ton of readiness, including Northern Edge going forward. So we're there today, as you're aware, and we will be there episodically throughout this year, sir.

Great. Thank you, General. Let me turn to another really, really important question. You've all touched on it, but what I'd like to do now is to extent we can from all the services get a better sense of the lessons learned that we have had from the recruiting and retention challenges and then how quickly those were turned around. I don't think it was an issue that got enough media attention that a couple years ago during the Biden administration, and there's probably a whole host of reasons for it, recruiting in some of our services, Army and the Navy in particular, was at very dangerous levels where we were missing the numbers, the targets to recruit young Americans for the all-volunteer force by thousands. By thousands. The services got on it, everybody undertook a focus on this, and now, if you can repeat again, I think everybody's in a good spot, all the services on recruiting and retention in terms of the numbers. But we need to look at the lessons learned on that, and maybe, Ms. Maurer, when the services go through, maybe you should weigh in as well, because that's an existential crisis to the military that we had a couple years ago. If you have an all-volunteer force and you can't encourage the young men and women of our country to volunteer, you can be in a lot of trouble quickly. And I think we dodged a bullet here, but I'd like to get from all of you why you think we turned that around so quickly and what are the lessons learned to make sure we don't go through that again. General, we'll start with you.

Yes, sir. Thanks for the question. You know, we're on pace to exceed last year's goal right now. I think there's a lot of things that feed into this. We've transformed the command that oversees it. So we have Training and Transformation Command that has made it more streamlined. It's the unit that takes somebody from their household all the way through training and into the unit and then equips them into the future. So we've streamlined and made it more efficient throughout the whole ecosystem of bringing people into the military. It's the right people also, the right recruiters that are out there in our hometowns across the country. It's the right trainers that are in the training base to do this. And I think there's another part in this as well, and it's a commitment to our facilities to make sure that where people work and where the people live get the proper money into fixing the infrastructure. So I think there's a lot that plays into the ecosystem. What we're not doing as an Army is taking our eye off the ball. The Chief and the Secretary have been very clear on this, that we'll continue to focus on this, bringing the right people into the Army and getting them out into our formation.

And can I just get from all of you as well, and we didn't lower our standards, right? Some people said, well, you know, maybe these standards are too high for young Americans. The way that we fixed this was not to lower the standards, isn't that correct?

That's correct, sir.

Hey, I would agree with General LaNeve. We have a relentless focus on the system that is our recruiting apparatus. So I get briefed on it quarterly. I went to visit the Recruiting Command several weeks ago, and I am awed about the focus of our recruiters to get people on board.

And the Navy's on time and on target?

We're ahead of schedule. But I think it's focus on the recruiter to enable them to be successful. There's all kinds of things that could keep that from happening. We've examined the eight functions that make a recruiter successful, and that goes to our Navy Education Training Command, Great Lakes throughput, our delayed entry program, all that is exquisitely managed daily. So it's a relentless focus from the CNO on down, and we're going to have to keep our hands on the wheel here. You just can't go into automatic, it's going to require that kind of attention. We up-gunned our Recruiting Command commander from a one-star to a two-star, extremely experienced, and he knows with great fidelity on areas that are recruiting, on what ratings are most likely to be recruited out of those areas. So we're just better at our business.

Good. General, now I'm going to be a little bit biased here. I don't think the Marine Corps went through a lot of a crisis. I think the Marine Corps was an example a lot of other services looked at. So, but lessons learned from the Marine Corps on recruiting?

Chairman, thanks for the question. So on recruiting for the Marine Corps, I really break it down into three components that have made us successful. The first I truly believe is our brand, and that's ironclad discipline, it's ruthless adherence to standards, it's first to fight, it's every Marine a rifleman. That is who we are, and we have to continue to earn that every day. But I think that brand appeals to a certain group of individuals that have a propensity to serve. The second component is our Recruiting Command and our recruiters. Our recruiters are all handpicked and their leaders are all board-selected. And so we put a full investment in the people that go out on the streets of America to tell young men and women who we are. And I think the third component is really the support and oversight that we get from the Congress to make sure that we're able to fully resource our Recruiting Command to include advertising. So that's the way I package our recruiting success, Chairman.

Good. I'll turn it back to Senator Hirono, although I actually... if you don't mind, I want to just... this is a really important question. If we can just finish up, it's a really important question for everybody. General, the Air Force is on target right now in terms of recruiting. Any lessons learned from the big shift that happened over the last few years?

Chairman, I think a lot of Americans are inspired to join your United States Air Force. I also think, similar to the other services, a very strong focus and increased attention on it goes a long way, and that's where we are putting our talent in the recruiting corps. We are also adjusting our focus. Before it was mostly on the enlisted cadre, now we renamed the Recruiting Center to the Accession Center to focus both on enlisted and officer alike. We've met our recruiting goals in '24, '25, we're absolutely on target in '26, and this year we have 10 percent higher applicants to your United States Air Force Academy.

Great. General, what about you? You just mentioned you got to double the size of the Space Force, that is a tall order, but I know that you guys are also hitting your numbers. What's your sense on lessons learned?

Yes, sir. Chairman, we're hitting our numbers. Now our numbers are measured in the hundreds, not the thousands or tens of thousands my colleagues have to bring in. We tend to have more applicants than we have space for right now, and our delayed entry program is at the tune of about 800, so we're covered well into next year already at this point in the year. And so we think we can take on any growth that comes to the Space Force. I will say we one of the advantages we saw in the Army really led us through this as a joint team was in medical processing and the emphasis on MEPS and accelerating people through MEPS, understanding how waiver process works, and went through a series of meetings over the past year really led by the Army team, but we all benefited from that work in the medical processing aspect of bringing people into the services. Over.

Right. Thank you. And finally, Ms. Maurer, did you... I know you GAO's looked at this as a big issue. What do you think the turnaround that happened rather quickly was attributable to?

I think it's attributable to a couple of important considerations. First and foremost is senior-level focus and attention on this issue. It's vitally important to make sure that the services are getting, are hitting their numbers on recruitment because we found in many instances from our prior work shortages in critical occupations, whether that was air defenders or sailors aboard in the surface Navy or the fact that the Space Force did not have the number of guardians it needed to fully staff what it thought it needed under the Spaford Gen Force. So having senior-level attention definitely makes it as an important part of this. I think the second thing you're hearing from all the different services is that they've adapted approaches that are specific to their service that are targeted on trying to streamline the process and also find a way where appropriate to make it easier for folks to come into their particular service without lowering standards. It's a good news story and hope that they can continue that momentum in the coming years.

Great. Thank you very much. Really important question and congratulations on all for all of you on turning this around. Really critical for our nation. Senator Warren.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing. So the military spends hundreds of billions of dollars on equipment, which makes it really galling when that equipment needs maintenance and our service members are ready to make a quick fix, but they're not allowed to. Right to repair will strengthen readiness by making sure that procurement contracts don't hold back our troops. Plus, it will help increase competition to grow our industrial base. Giant defense contractors, however, want to keep our military relying solely on them. So their lobbyists are pretending to be worried that DOD is going to steal their trade secrets and hand them over to their competitors. We have heard this song before. The Defense Logistics Agency had a reverse engineering program for over a decade, and this was to help DOD save time and money on things like screws and door hinges and antennas and batteries. But similar concerns were raised over IP protection. So the Senate had the Government Accountability Office review this program back in 2018. General Gering, how many instances did GAO find of companies being concerned about DLA mishandling their IP for reverse engineering? What was the number?

Senator, my understanding is there were none or minimal.

Zero. That was the number. Right. Zero. That's exactly right. None of the businesses that GAO talked to about reverse engineering program reported any concerns about the handling of IP. And that's because DLA has processes in place to protect intellectual property, which meant that GAO found DLA, quote, never released a part that had controlled data to a competitor. Even the large defense associations lobbying against right to repair today told the GAO back then that they had heard, quote, no complaints. The other argument we hear from lobbyists is that companies won't want to do business with DOD if it so much as mentions buying contractors' IP. So again, we actually have an example of this. Let's look at what happened with DLA's reverse engineering program. General Gering, did DOD's handling of IP scare businesses away from doing business with military?

Senator, not that I'm aware of.

Okay. In fact, again, the whole point of the program was, quote, to identify potential new sources for obsolete parts or those supplied by only one source, increasing competition and achieving savings. Now, that may be the problem that the defense industry lobbyists have, and that is there's more competition and lower prices, but we like to think that is a good thing. Reverse engineering is helping DOD fill gaps in spare parts, and right to repair would build on that success in the larger maintenance space. Don't take it from me. Just last year, 339 small businesses sent a letter stating that right to repair could bring cost-effective solutions, accelerated timelines, and a larger sustainment ecosystem with more small business participation. Now, last year's NDAA required, now by law, that DOD identify programs where there is insufficient technical data for service members to make repairs. So what I'd like to do is I'd just like to go down the line here and make sure that each of the services, I just want to ask you the question, will you provide this committee with the required data, required by law, by the end of this month and then sit down with my team on this? I'm just looking for a yes or no. General?

Ma'am, thank you for the question. I think the our data goes to OSW and they're required to provide that data, but we absolutely are going to make the timeline.

You will have it in by the end of the month. That's what I want to hear. Admiral?

We will, ma'am.

Good. I like that. General?

Senator, we will.

Good. General?

Senator, we will.

Good. General?

Senator, yes ma'am, we will.

Good. Ms.?

Well, Senator, I'm a GAO representative and thank you for giving a call out to our 2018 report.

You bet. It's a terrific report.

Thank you very much. We had another report that came out just a few months ago that talked about the concerns with vendor lock because of this issue that you've highlighted. We found significant problems with that issue in the F-35, Littoral Combat Ship, Stryker, the Virginia-class submarine among others. And we look forward to having the department fully implement our recommendations from that review.

Thank you. You know, right to repair is such a common sense proposal. And it not only helps our military be able to get things fixed and back into service, it lowers cost and it also increases competition and increases the opportunities for other businesses, for smaller businesses to get in and have an opportunity to be part of our base. And ultimately that strengthens the supply chain for all of us. So right now we are in a place where the Senate, the House, and the Trump administration all support this effort. We cannot allow large defense contractors and their lobbyists to stand in the way. I look forward to working with my colleagues and with all of you in getting this done. Thank you very much. Thank you, Senator Chairman.

Well, thank you, Senator Warren, and Senator Warren knows that she and I don't agree on everything here in this committee, but I will commend her very much for her leadership on this issue that has a lot of broad bipartisan support and I think we need to do it. So thank you, Senator Warren. Senator Scott.

I also want to thank Senator Warren for leadership on this right to repair issue because it's the right thing to do and if it wasn't it wouldn't be happening but for her tenacity. So I want to thank her. All right. Thank you, thank each of you for being here today. I want to thank each and every one of you for all that you do to support our warfighters and ensure our joint force is ready anytime and anyplace to deliver on the Commander-in-Chief's mission, which is what you all what you do. When we talk about readiness to defend our country against adversaries and growing threats, Communist China comes to mind. Sure does for you every day. The CCP will stop at nothing to undermine our country and way of life and their aggression grows by the day. So General Gering and Admiral Kilby, as we witness the increased aggression and growing threats from Communist China in the Indo-Pacific, it's clear that our country must be ready and able to respond now more than ever because of clear threats I want to hear from you on the amphibious readiness group. Is that a reality 3.0?

I'll start and then I'll turn it over to ACMC. We understand the importance of the ARG/MEU presence. It's a ability for us to respond to crisis in almost real time with Marines and sailors. Sir, my ability to deliver amphibious maintenance has been challenged and I've been very clear about that and last year when I testified we were at 42 percent combat surge ready for our amphibious ships. This year we're at 53 percent. I don't feel good about that because our goal is 80 percent. And I'm working hard with the ACMC to do that. We co-chair a board, the Amphibious Force Readiness Board, where we look at all means. We briefed Senator Sullivan on this several weeks ago on the efforts across the board to increase the numbers and availabilities of our amphibious ships and I'll just turn it over to ACMC for anything he wants to add.

Yes, Senator, thanks for the question. So Admiral Kilby and I are completely aligned on this. I think a couple of recent things that have occurred, the Commandant has stated the 3.0 MEU/ARG as as the requirement, his requirement for combatant commands. Most recently the Secretary of War has directed that, the SECNAV does support that, and he has established this Amphibious Force Readiness Board which Admiral Kilby and I will co-chair for the first time tomorrow. And I think that that's going to be the body or the entity that actually determines what would it take, what's it going to take to get there.

For the two of you, is 31 the right number or should be something like 45?

My rough math says it's it's north of 31 and that's dependent on a lot of things. What is the operational readiness response plan turnaround, is it 36 months or 40 months? So we've got to work through that and drive that back to get it more efficient, but it is more than 31, sir.

You agree?

Senator, I do agree. We have work to do in this board that we're going to co-chair should really get after that number better, but I would think it's it's probably somewhere near 40, but we we have to put more rigor into that analysis.

So I'd tell you if it's if it's higher than your readiness numbers actually as a percentage is lower, right? And so we don't have enough. General Gering, following Secretary Helspath's barracks task force, which was established in October, can you talk about how the Marine Corps is modernizing the barracks for single Marines?

Senator, thanks for the question. This has been a Commandant's priority since he became the Commandant. It was one of his top five and it stays his top five. So we have taken a holistic approach of looking at how we manage the barracks and then how we modernize them through both renovation and new build, and then how we furnish them. So we are on track, we are in execution, we are seeing tangible results. In 2025 alone, we completed four new barracks constructions, began eight others, awarded eight other barracks for renovation, and furnished in excess of 139 barracks rooms with new furniture, sir, so we're moving out.

Great. Admiral Kilby, we've seen an increase in suicide with sailors. Can you talk about how you're addressing that?

Yes, sir. Well, first of all, any loss of a sailor is a tragedy. It's doubly tragic when it's a loss to suicide. So we take this seriously and regrettably, last year our numbers increased. So we're attacking this from two ends, a prevention and then a postvention perspective. Secretary Del Toro has set up a task force of which both ACMC and I have provided folks and we both are included in that to really get after what is happening here, what are the trends. When I was the acting CNO, I signed off 80 condolence letters and over two-thirds of them were for suicide. So we've got work to do here, sir. We take it seriously. It is a tragedy and we want to get after this in a meaningful manner.

All right. Well, thank each of you for what you do.

Thank you. And by the way, gentlemen, thank you for the briefing on the amphibs with the SECNAV. I very much appreciated that. It was very informative. Senator Hirono.

I too had a question relating to the readiness of our amphibious ships because last year it was 13 out of 32 ships were ready and now we're talking about Admiral Kilby and General Gering, you're going to get together to get us to 80 percent readiness, which I think I heard you say contemplating taking three years. Is that what I heard?

We don't have a timeline on how long it's going to take, ma'am. And actually, combat surge ready means those ships that are not in a depot status are available for deployment, and that includes those on deployment. So last year that number for you was 42. This year it's 53. So we're increasing, but we're not where we need to be.

Actually, not fast enough. But among the three of us, you can see that, oh, he left. You can see that we are all very focused on the number of amphibious ships that are ready to conduct Marine Corps operations. So I want you to know that I'm certainly joining my colleagues in that concern. A number of you have already focused on the living conditions for our service people and that is a continuing concern and I just want to emphasize how important it is for all of you to take to heart Ms. Maurer's GAO recommendations for making improvements to military housing and we're not there yet. I don't think that you've hit 100 percent of the recommendations. Is that correct, Ms. Maurer?

That is correct.

So I want to join my colleagues in focusing all of you to get to the point where our housing, their housing needs are being met. And thank you for also talking about the childcare needs that our people have. I want to get to the issue of the lease of training lands in Hawaii. And the major one there is Pohakuloa. General LaNeve, a year ago at this hearing, your predecessor committed to me that the Army would engage in good faith with the state and the community, very important, and the community as the military works to renegotiate service training land leases in Hawaii that are set to expire in 2029 and time goes by really fast. And unfortunately, in the interim, Secretary Escolas has indicated that he may just use, seize the land via condemnation. I think that will be perceived by the people of Hawaii as not negotiating in good faith. So I'll ask you the same question that I asked your predecessor, General LaNeve. I ask for your commitment that the Army will engage in good faith with the state and the community on the issue of the extension of training leases in Hawaii.

Ma'am, yes. Yes, we will.

This is very critical and I think that we need to make clear to the community that I know you have a person in Hawaii that's specifically focused on these negotiations and I think that the community needs to know that the first step is not to start talking about condemning the land. And so that is just, I would want these negotiations to proceed, please understand that this training area is very critical to the Army's presence in Hawaii. I understand that.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay. And I know as for the other services, at some point, the Air Force, the Navy, you also have some leases that you're negotiating and again, I think it is very important to let the community know that you are going to be listening to the community and have their voices heard as you go about your negotiations, which may be not as large as the negotiation or complicated, I should say, as the negotiations over Pohakuloa. I want to get to women in combat. Over 10 years ago, the services put significant effort into establishing and validating physical standards for combat occupational specialties. And the DOD has now called for a review of the effectiveness of women in combat roles. This is extremely offensive, if not to say questionable. And it to me likely reflects an effort by the Secretary of Defense to lay the groundwork to reverse the policy allowing women to serve in combat area positions, combat arms positions. I hope I'm wrong in this, but well, it undermines the sacrifices of thousands of female service members like Senator Duckworth who have already met the rigorous gender-neutral standards and have served in combat with distinction. For all of the witnesses, and I'm going to go from my left to my right, for all of the witnesses, do you believe the mere fact of women being in these combat arms units lowers standards or readiness? General.

Ma'am, thanks for the question. Combat doesn't distinguish between MOSs. What I will tell you, my daughter is a combat engineer. I've served in the 82nd Airborne Division, I commanded a division, I had a lot of women in that formation and we had the highest standards for a division in the Army. Objective standards that are met by both men and women, I think is what we're looking for for people to serve in combat MOSs.

Your answer is therefore, yes? No? Okay, I'm sorry. I'll repeat the question. I appreciate your testimony, by the way. Do you believe the mere fact of women being in these combat arms units lowers standards or readiness?

Not if the standards are high standards that everybody meets.

Answer's no?

The answer's no.

Thank you. That's very clear.

Senator, to be in the unit, you need to make the standard. So if they make the standard and they're in the unit, then it doesn't impact readiness.

General Gering.

Senator, to answer your question, if you meet the, you have to meet the standard to be in that unit, and if you meet the standard and all members in that unit meet that standard, then it does not detract from readiness.

General.

Ranking Member Hirono, same in the Air Force. You meet the standards, it does not degrade readiness.

General Bratton.

Same for the Space Force, ma'am.

Next question, do you agree that every service member regardless of gender should be permitted to serve in any role including in the combat arms if they meet the established standards? Let's make it very clear what your positions are, please.

Yes. Yes, ma'am, if you meet the standards.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes, ma'am.

Over the last decade since combat arms have been open to women, have you seen any instance where the standard your service established resulted in a degradation of combat effectiveness? Once again, let's go down the line. General LaNeve.

No, ma'am.

No.

No.

No, Senator.

No.

One more question. Two more. During the first Trump administration, it took units from the Army 101st Airborne Division a year to regain their readiness after being deployed to the southwest border. If none of you are seeing any adverse readiness impacts from deploying to the southwest border, at what point? Because we have been told that readiness was not compromised, but at what point does that change if units are only spending one day a week on core warfighting tasks and missing out entirely on large-scale combat exercises and collective maneuver training?

Ma'am, thanks for the question. So when we assign a unit to that task, we pick a very high readiness unit, 101st, 10th Mountain, just like we would if we're sending to a different combatant commander. As we receive those units back, we'll put them back into the training base. What we are seeing on the border though, we are seeing platoons that are able to go through their platoon rehearsals, planning for their patrols. We are seeing staffs exercising their staff functions. We're getting utilization, counter-UAS equipment on the border. So we are building readiness there in some of the formations. But just like going anywhere else, any other combatant command, as they come back, we rebuild that readiness for utilization someplace else and we pick a high readiness unit to backfill them. Thank you.

That was, this was a question particularly for you, General LaNeve, so thank you. And then for General Gering.

Thanks, Ranking Member. I was actually out on the border two weeks ago to visit our Marines there. And what I observed was engineering taking place, intelligence, surveillance, monitoring. And what was most impressive is a lot of small unit leadership, a lot of touch time with young officers with their formations. And also working distributed operations and logistics to support their units. So they're actually seeing some readiness there that is actually hard to emulate elsewhere. With that said, if they have the opportunity to continue sustainment training, then they do that. And the elements that are in San Diego actually are leveraging our local ranges there and keeping up some of those skills that they're not necessarily employing on the border. Where they're unable to do so, much like General LaNeve said, then that is when we will regenerate the force when they come back and that is no different than any global force management allocation that we do with the force.

The thing is that since our number one priority, national defense, is defense of the homeland, we can expect that there will be continuing deployments of troops to the southwest border, and that means the Army and the Navy. So you can expect that at some point the issue arises as to the readiness of the personnel who are being deployed to those missions. So I have a continuing concern about the use of the military for those border purposes. I have a few more questions along those lines. Excuse me?

Senator, I think as you probably know, we have an ongoing review at GAO looking at the potential readiness implications of military deployments on the southwest border. That team is midstream on its work and we're keeping your staff fully informed on what we're learning and we look forward to having our independent nonpartisan oversight of that published later on this year.

Thank you. Because as I said, at the same time, I do have a concern about the experience with large-scale operations, etc., because we still have to contend with China and Russia on the INDOPACOM AOR. And so that is a concern. For General LaNeve, how many migrants are currently being held at on Fort Bliss in Texas?

Ma'am, I don't know that number. That facility's been handed over to DHS. The Army, while it's on an Army installation, we don't have any, you know, ties to that facility.

Apparently you have a lot of land there and the DHS has a need for a lot more facilities to house the thousands of migrants that they intend to arrest. Are there any oversight mechanisms in place for this facility or accountability measures from the Army given this facility is on Fort Bliss?

No, ma'am. It's been handed, that facility's been completely handed over to DHS. They have their own access into the facility that's not, you know, tied to our installation down there.

Currently there is a measles outbreak that has forced the migrant detention center in Fort Bliss to quarantine. So General LaNeve, I mean, when was the last time a measles outbreak forced facilities to close on an Army installation?

And ma'am, I'm not sure when the last time a measles outbreak closed a facility, but ma'am, the medical side of that is being handled through DHS and the local community. It's not being done by the Army.

How many cases of tuberculosis are there at the East Montana facility on Fort Bliss?

Ma'am, I don't have that number.

What protocols and information is the Army giving the soldiers and families on Fort Bliss to ensure that they are protected?

Again, ma'am, the two facilities are completely separate.

So there is no interaction among these populations?

No, ma'am. That's correct, ma'am.

As the migrant detention center at Camp East Montana, which is not really in Montana, it's in Fort Bliss, continues to grow, what are the Army's roles and responsibilities for what happens there given that this facility resides on Fort Bliss?

Again, ma'am, the facility's been handed over to DHS. They have control of the facilities. They have the protocols. They have that.

I think that what I'm expressing are some concerns that I have for the fact that you have a DHS facility there with potentially thousands of migrants and there are various health outbreaks. I just have one more question, Mr. Chairman.

Yes, I'm giving you the 10 minutes.

Thank you. You're at 9:51. So much. The East Montana detention facility was built for ICE through a Navy contract mechanism called WEXMAC, Worldwide Expeditionary Multiple Award Contract, a very special type of contract. So that ICE could construct a detention facility quickly and not follow the typical process. Even Chairman Wicker has written DHS to oppose this particular ICE facility in Mississippi. Admiral Kilby, prior to this year, no DOD agency has ever used this contract mechanism domestically for this purpose before, correct?

I believe that's correct, ma'am.

But last month the Navy increased the contract ceiling for WEXMAC up to $65 billion for DHS, correct?

I'll have to check the figure, but I'm not contesting it, ma'am.

Well, it's in that vicinity. And how many Navy personnel have worked with ICE to contract through WEXMAC to date?

I will get you that figure, ma'am. I don't have it. I don't have the number of Navy personnel.

When can you get me that? Because clearly the Navy is enabling DHS to use a naval process to fast-track these detention facilities. And I would like to know ASAP how many Navy personnel are already working in that regard.

I will get you that number as soon as I can, ma'am.

Thank you. Great. Thank you, Senator Hirono. I'm going to do a final round of questions here and if my colleague wants to do another round, that would be great as well. Just commenting on the Southwest border, there's nothing new here. Presidents all the time have deployed troops to the Southwest border. I returned from my first deployment as a U.S. Marine many years ago to Camp Pendleton and half my battalion was immediately sent to the Southwest border under President Clinton. So this is an ongoing issue that all presidents have done. I want to ask General Lamontagne on the issue of tankers. Where are we with regard to the KC-46 and the deployment there? And then just in the last couple weeks, I've had a couple good discussions with the Secretary of the Air Force and General Wilsbach about an ongoing issue that we've gotten commitments from on the Air Force for almost a decade now to get additional KC-135s to Eielson. As you know, we have a lot of activity up there, Red Flag, and the need for more tanker capacity in Alaska with our over 100 fifth-gen fighters in my state is very obvious. But it's not just obvious for Alaska training, it's any surge force that would go to INDOPACOM, they're all going to be flying over Alaska, they're all going to be needing to be tanked. So the big picture on KC-46s and then the commitment I got recently from the Secretary and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force on finally getting those KC-135s up to Eielson. I'd like to get your view on that, both of them.

Chairman, thank you for the question. The tankers is a very important part of our Air Force. It helps us defend the homeland and project power, as you well know. The KC-46, we have a new contract that will come in place in a couple of years. So right now we've delivered more than 100 KC-46s on our way from 183 to 188 will be the end of that initial contract. We have or we are working through a couple of issues with the contractor and we're not going to get a new contract for another 75 KC-46s until we work through some of those deficiencies. Confident that a good plan is in place that we'll deliver here next year and then in subsequent years we will sign, we intend to pursue another 75 KC-46s to deliver to the fleet. For the KC-135s, obviously an important mission at Eielson. We are committed to delivering three additional KC-135s. We delivered one of them a little while ago, probably in 2023, and our intent is to deliver those in the very near term. However, Chairman, that is complicated by the operations in the Middle East right now, but we will absolutely get back to you and your staff to deliver the details on that timeline.

Great. Let me ask another Air Force issue. You know, I know that the Secretary, I think this is up actually at the Secretary of War's level, but on the B-21 and the purchase orders on the B-21, a lot of people, I think most people would now look at, you know, in the 1990s when we dramatically curtailed our purchases of F-22s. It's such a great aircraft and yet we kind of lowballed the number that we thought we needed, so we cut back dramatically on what the Air Force was going to purchase on those. And I think a lot of people have buyer's remorse on that decision, but that was a long time ago. But there's a similar option, I think, on the B-21 to look at another kind of block order. Is that decision been made yet? Obviously you have a good idea what I'm talking about. Are you tracking that one and can you give me an update on that?

Chairman, absolutely. B-21, very capable platform. We have delivered two so far. Right now the intention is to deliver 100 B-21s. There's some analysis that's been done and will continue to be refined at STRATCOM and Air Force Global Strike Command to see exactly how many we will need. Tough to tell right now whether that's an additional five B-21s or an additional 150 B-21s until we get through that analysis. Not comfortable giving you an answer on exactly what that looks today, but it may very well be north of 100.

Great. The additional is what you're talking about or north of 100 is what you're purchasing. In terms of the additional, you said anywhere between five and 100, that's still being looked at.

Those are just, those are not from the study. It could be, I don't have great clarity on what that looks like. But the current plan is to buy 100. Too early to tell how much further north we go, if we go further north.

Okay, good. General Bratton, I want to talk about the missile defense, Golden Dome. You know, Alaska's a cornerstone of missile defense for the country right now with all the ground-based missile interceptors at Fort Greely, which the Army does a great job at, and the LRDR site at the Clear Space Force location, the other Aleutian Island chain radar systems. Obviously with the Golden Dome, we're going to be dramatically advancing our missile defense capabilities, not just in Alaska, but space-based sensors, space-based interceptors. I know General Gootlein is very focused on this, but how do you think that's going? What are the areas that we need to focus on as we are starting to implement? You know, in the budget reconciliation bill last year, we got about a $25 billion down payment on this. We legislated a lot, Senator Cramer and I had the Golden Dome Act, which pretty much all of that was put in the NDAA. So there's legislation, there's presidential leadership, there's money. How we doing on that and what areas are you concerned about?

Hey sir, thanks for the question. We're, I'll start with talking about Clear and Cobra Dane, the radars that are absolutely critical for missile warning for the nation.

By the way, great job on standing up the Clear LRDR site. I think it was on time, under budget, and that was a complicated radar system that's one of the most sophisticated in the world, as you know.

Yes sir, absolutely. And those radars, you know, combined with the Norad and Tier radars really are the cornerstone of homeland defense and our missile warning architecture that we're taking care of every day. And we've seen investment in Clear both in the radar, the brand-new dorm that's just about to open up in May, Guardians will start moving into the new dorm. So thanks for your support for the station up there. So we continue that missile warning mission and that absolutely contributes to Golden Dome. I'll leave the specifics on Golden Dome to General Gootlein and the team, but I can assure you we are closely tied to them, helping with launch operations out of Kodiak. There's about $22.5 million that went to Kodiak to help with infrastructure there that will end up supporting Golden Dome. And then we'll keep track of the radars for General Gering and the team delivering that capability. Anything else on Golden Dome, I'd probably defer over to the GDA team.

Good, great. Thank you. Let me go again through each of the service vice chiefs here very quickly. The issue of munitions and the industrial base and our deficiencies, and the Secretary of War has made this a top priority of his. We talked about it again in this classified briefing yesterday. But what I want to get from each service is what you see as kind of the biggest industrial base challenges for your service and how do we get on that more quickly? And it could be a weapons system, it could be a broad challenge. And you know, there's been a lot of discussion on munitions and I mentioned it in my opening statement. Are there any munitions issues as well that relate to industrial base matters that you want to highlight for this committee as again we look at building out this year's NDAA? We'll start with you, General LaNeve.

Sir, thanks for the question. So we're tied in very, very closely with the Deputy Secretary of War's big focus on munitions writ large and our organic industrial base. We have 23 facilities that really were set up for World War II kind of era facilities. We're working very hard to really, you know, fix our industrial base. It's really been neglected for a long time. So it's investing in the people that are working there, working to get them knowledge and technology. It's bringing in partnerships with industry into the industrial base to help us modernize these facilities. It's bringing in advanced manufacturing so we can get after right to repair and get after producing the items that we need not only for the future force, which is going to be a technologically advanced force, but we also have to maintain the equipment where we have issues with the supply chain. We know that we can do that at our organic industrial base. It's a full-court press. It affects every piece of our readiness for our Army, and it's a huge focus for the Secretary and Chief that will have an impact for generations as we transform the force. But thank you for the question, sir.

Good. Admiral, I know you're focused a lot on industrial base issues. Are there any really big ones that you want us to focus on that the Navy needs to work on and overcome?

First off, I'd agree with everything General LaNeve said. The DepSecWar has kind of led the charge on here. We'all marching behind him, supporting from a service perspective. I think it's, you know, not an either-or. It's traditional vendors increasing capacity, so there's a long-term contract perspective there to get them to commit to the facilitization in order to do that. I think there's a non-traditional vendor opening that we should be pursuing. That includes supply base as well. I also think non-traditional vendors could build parts of munitions as long as we had the spec right, like rocket motors, so we don't have to get the whole munition, but where we're challenged with rocket motors and seekers, we could seek other avenues to have vendors help with that and just add to that capacity. So there's work there to do.

Great. General?

Thanks, Chairman. Certainly agree with General LaNeve and Admiral Kilby regarding munitions, and we're 100 percent aligned with where the Deputy Secretary of War is going on this. I think other industrial base items as we look in our aviation portfolio, this gets at the ability to produce spares and or platforms. The two that we're currently fielding right now in the Marine Corps are the F-35 and the CH-53K. So it's a matter of meeting production in the case of the Kilo as a function of schedule, but then also the industry's ability to produce spares in a timely fashion as we field those capabilities to the Marine Corps.

Great. General, you have any views on the industrial base that are really the big issues the Air Force needs to address?

Chairman, I agree with the Vice's comments, and without repeating those, I'll add a couple of more. Stable and predictable funding, I think, will go a long way. Multi-year contracts would be very helpful as well. That'll help the defense industrial base invest in their facilities to help ramp up production at scale and in a hurry.

Good. General?

Sir, similar comments, and I'd add for the Space Force that, you know, this idea of growing the force we need to both acquire those systems and then operate it, making sure our training infrastructure can onboard those Guardians who need to be working in the program offices to bring all this new mission, all this new equipment into the service, and then work it through the test and training infrastructure so we're fielding fully capable systems with Guardians that are trained to operate it. to bring all this all this new mission, all this new equipment into the service and then work it through the test and training infrastructure so we're fielding fully capable systems with Guardians that are trained to operate it.

Great. Let me wrap it up here. Ms. Maurer, you do a great job of looking at some of the deficiencies. A lot of times in your reports, and I'm sure the services have this as a challenge, you lay out a very well-thought-out, insightful list of reforms and prioritization. As you know, sometimes that gets squeezed out by what the budget is. A number of us have been encouraging the President, the Secretary of War, to help address a lot of these readiness issues, maintenance issues, munitions issues, industrial base issues that are very significant to put forward a top line that reflects the challenges and the danger that the current international system presents to America and our citizens. And the President and the Secretary have done that with this announcement, and I know that they're working on the details of a $1.5 trillion top line. Is that the kind of number that can, if utilized well, can help clear your to-do list from GAO on all the things that we have discussed today and need to focus on in terms of readiness?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that question. I think from the GAO perspective, it's how the money is used is arguably even more important than the amount of the money.

It's really both, though, right?

Clearly both. Like, we've seen many instances where it's a lack of resources. Obviously, from a GAO perspective, we're not going to take a position on what the top line should be.

I know. I tried, but...

I know, I know, but I've got to make sure my bosses back home are okay with that. But essentially it comes down to the trade-offs, right? And so there's a lot of emphasis, or we've seen in the past rather, an overemphasis arguably on developing new technology. But new technology does not become new capability for the warfighter unless it's a yes-and. And that yes-and includes you need to have plans, you need to have personnel, you need to have facilities to make sure that when it gets in the hands of the warfighter, they know how to use it, they know how to maintain it, they know how to move it, and more importantly, that the service knows how to upgrade it. And there have been real deficiencies in that in the past, and if additional resources can help address those problems in the future and we have fewer readiness and sustainment challenges down the road, all the better.

Great. Well, I want to thank the witnesses. I want to thank you again for your service. Admiral Kilby, I do want to acknowledge what you mentioned earlier today about some of the great work the Navy is doing. All the services are doing great work. We have, I certainly have a lot of my young Alaskan constituents in the region on ships like the Abraham Lincoln and others. And I want to thank all of our services and our leadership here, but the men and women that you're leading for their service during these challenging times, but very important times. I'll give you an example that I think it's changing in a dramatic way, particularly as it relates to the Iranian Navy. A lot of you might remember, I'm sure you remember, that just a couple of years ago the Houthis were targeting Navy ships. The USS Carney, I think, shot down or avoided over 100 missiles and drones launched by the Houthis. The Iranians were nearby on spy ships providing targeting information to the Houthis for American warships to kill American sailors and Marines. That was a fact. That was testified here in public. In the previous administration wouldn't do anything. I asked in hearings like this to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, why the Iranian Navy is providing intel to the Houthis to take out American sailors and Marines right now? How come the Iranian Navy is not at the bottom of the ocean? They should be for deterrence. You can't target Americans to kill them and think you can get away with it. Well, guess what? A lot of the Iranian Navy is at the bottom of the ocean right now. And that's deterrence because they've been using that to kill, to try to kill Americans, and now we're re-establishing deterrence with our military forces here. But I particularly want to commend the Navy for some of the actions that you highlighted in your testimony. I want to commend all our Vice Chiefs here for your decades of service to our country and your families as well. We are now adjourning the hearing, but we will keep the record open for the next 14 days for questions for the record from other Senators on this committee, and we would respectfully ask all the witnesses to respond to those QFRs within a week after their receipt. Thank you again for our witnesses for your service. This hearing is adjourned.