GENERAL GRASS: Thank you. Go ahead and. take your seats. So Gus Hargett told me "move fast." He said "We don't want to miss the road closure.

Transcription

1 GENERAL GRASS: Thank you. Go ahead and take your seats. So Gus Hargett told me "move fast." He said "We don't want to miss the road closure." So I'm going to follow my instructions from Gus Hargett. First of all, let me say, distinguished guests, Guardsmen and women, thanks so much for inviting me. Thanks for an opportunity to be here in Hawaii. It is great. You know, Craig McKinley didn't have a vice. I have a vice. So the vice is covering all the meetings back there and I get to stay through Monday. What I wanted to do today though, and try to move through fairly quickly. We won't have time for questions on the back end, but General Ingram, myself and General Sid Clarke will be doing a panel session tomorrow. So if you have questions, we'll definitely have plenty of time to work through that. I think it's tomorrow. GENERAL DANNER: Yes. GENERAL GRASS: But one thing I start out with, as I talk to different groups now, is I try to

2 start out, and go ahead to the next slide, with just a vision and a mission, because so much has changed in the National Guard, starting with the great work that Craig McKinley did, in having to establish the first member of the Joint Chiefs for the National Guard Bureau and the first four-star. Craig spent some time with Joe and I the week we were changing out, and he gave us some pretty good direction. After a year now in the job, we've been looking at the vision statement and mission statement saying it's still valid. Yeah, it is still valid. I would tell you, without going into a lot of detail though, where it says "By 2023, mission operational forces," you know, the resourced piece of that, "is at risk, because of full sequestration," and I'll talk a little bit more about that. So the message of the Governor of Hawaii this morning came loud and clear to me. I know Bill Ingram feels the same day, of what we see every day inside the Pentagon. But more importantly what's

3 happening within the Budget Control Act, and how that will impact us. I'll talk a little more about that later. Our mission hasn't changed since I guess Boston, actually Concord, that first muster, you know. Be prepared to defend the homeland, and take care of your citizens, and that's what we do every day, and we're doing that right now today. Next slide. I put this slide up for one reason, and this crowd doesn't need that information. But I'll share with you how many people have asked me, in the year I've been in the job, why do you need F-16s? Why do you have to fly F-22s? Why do you have Apaches, why do you have tanks, Bradleys? I said because we are first a federal reserve, a combat reserve of the Air Force and Army. We always want to be a combat reserve of the Air Force and Army. I wouldn't really call us a reserve right now; I'd call us an operational force. So I make it clear, and it's because of the investment the nation makes in that federal

4 reserve, that we can do the state mission all the time. So I want to make that clear, because as you travel out, you will get asked that sometimes, and we never want to split ourselves from the Army and Air Force. The next couple of bullets down, it shows you the Army Guard strength. All of those are pre-sequestration numbers. On 1 October this year, we're going to drop 4,000 off the Army Guard. That really starts getting us back to where we were pre-9/11. We'll go back to 350,200. That's before the Budget Control Act. Air Guard, you can see them dropping down to 105,400. That's before Budget Control Act. Next slide. So I wanted to share with you the priorities that we live every day at the National Guard Bureau, and you can see them there. It starts out with train the ready forces, and that's what you do every day for this nation. Over the summer, I've had an opportunity to travel quite a bit. I'll tell you that the proudest days for

5 me is being out with your troops and with you, and with your airmen. I usually try to split the time between Army and Air, since I represent both of you, and I see the same thing in their eyes. They are dedicated. They're the best we have to offer, the nation has to offer, and it's the exact thing we need right now, when we're going through such fiscal constraints and compensation and payrolls are eating our lunch within the defense budget. So the National Guard is the right solution. If you look down at the second bullet there, you know, trying to get the resources right is extremely important today, and making sure that every resource we have is used properly, and at a time that we've all gotten used to, over the last 12 years, of having everything we need for every one of our units as they get ready to go into combat. That's changing, and you all know that right now. So we've got to get that right. Third bullet, sustain the National Guard community. That is the most important thing we do

6 every day, with our people, our family and our communities. The last bullet, and I'll show you a few slides on each of these, of forge and maintain our partnerships. Go ahead and go to the next slide. So people say well, you're going back to a strategic reserve. I told four-stars in the Army, no, we're not. We're not going back to a strategic reserve. This is 2013, the first year of sequestration. Look at the numbers. I know it's a little bit hard to see probably in the back. These are the missions in 2013 the Army and Air National Guard have performed, both in mobilization as well as around the United States. There's also training missions you'll see on there. If you look at the upper part of the chart where it says "Priority No. 1," you see that green and that amber. We rate ourselves. We are very green with the forces you provide and those that deploy. We're turning to a bit amber and we're concerned, because

7 we're seeing a reduction in some of our training opportunities, that we need to keep collective training at a very high state for this very seasoned force. I'll just give you a couple of highlights off of here. Today, there are 17,000 Army and Air National Guardsmen deployed in Title X status overseas, in every operation the Army and Air Force are in. There are 4,400 in that area there on the left side of the chart, 4,400 Army and Air National Guardsmen responding to either Title X, Title 32 or state active duty mission in the homeland today. The average in the year that I've been there probably is about 5,000. I know Craig McKinley will tell you probably about the same. Every given day, there's about 5,000 Guardsmen doing missions on the southwest border, protecting the skies under the NORAD agreement. About 95 percent of that is done by the Air National Guard every day.

8 Colorado, just finished up their search and rescue mission. 1,600 rescues, 40 live waste, 700 animals picked off the side of the mountain, pets that went with the people. 650 ground rescues with our high water vehicles, and that's just to start. The engineers are moving in now to help reopen the roads. This is the kind of mission you all do every day, and if somebody asks you are you operational, share that with them. You can't be more operational, and the numbers I just gave you for Colorado, that started eight days ago, and we're already on the back side of all that. Next slide. So what makes a Guard operational for the future, and General Engle and I have spent some time, and Bill Ingram and Sid Clarke, and we've come up with three things that we want to shoot for for the future. First, a certain amount of deployments. I've talked to General Odierno. The numbers are going to come down, you know, 17,000 today though.

9 We think for the long term five to ten thousand Air and Army mobilized. The Air Guard numbers are going up a little bit right now on mobilization. But we think there is a number in there we need to find for a brigade or two a year, a wing or two a year to deploy, because our soldiers and airmen are telling us. We want to stay in every mission the Army and Air Force are in today. So there is an operational piece of that that we want to keep going, both deployed and in the homeland. Exercises is the second part of that operational force. CONUS exercise, OCONUS exercise. Combat training centers. Some of you have been off map recently, out of combat training center rotations. You know, do we need to look at XCTCs? I know that General Ingram just visited the 48th. Great training opportunity. Reduces the dollars by about five times, and you still get a great training opportunity at your more nearby training area. But we've got to keep those kind of

10 missions going. The combat rating for the Air Guard, combat readiness training centers are very important, and deployment for training, overseas deployment and IRT. Those are the missions we're looking to source for the future, try to get the dollars right so we can keep our units collectively engaged, but in CONUS and OCONUS. I think this year we did a mission in Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama. Much smaller than what we did in the 870's, early 90s, but we're still doing those missions. We think we want to export that even more into Panama, maybe even to the Pacific. It might take a 21-day AT to get there, but we want to work on that for the future. The last part of the operational force is individual opportunities that we're going after. Some of you remember the old Keep Up program. We think we want the Keep Up program for all grades. So if somebody on active duty has a shortfall for 30 days and they're going to an

11 exercise, and we've got somebody who can get away from their civilian job and wants to fill that requirement, we want to be able to offer that, have the money in place, all the way to a senior NCO or a general officer. We just had a New Jersey one-star, General Grant, who went and filled a 60-day shortfall at NORTHCOM, a joint billet. He did a fabulous job that I got back from General Jacoby. He said he learned so much in that 60 days. It was a great exchange. So those are the kind of missions we want to go after for the future, and that will keep us operational. Next slide. So key message, I'm hearing it over and over, if you do not agree, let me know, because we're hearing from the young folks don't take a knee. Bring it down. We're going to bring it down as a nation, but keep us engaged. Next slide. I talked to -- on the list of priorities about this one, and you see a green and amber on there. We are doing very well. You are

12 doing great, I will tell you, as I monitor the closeout of the year in budget, realizing the uncertainties throughout the year you had to deal with. You are doing very well at managing those budgets. For the long term though, the Budget Control Act is law, and if Department of Defense doesn't do anything else, 1 January every year about ten percent of each of our appropriations goes away. So we've been working very closely with your adjutants general, both on the Air side and the Army side, with the Chief of the Staff for the Air Force and Chief of Staff for the Army, to try to help drive where that money comes from, what bills we're going to pay, and what structure we need in the Guard for the future. We're still in negotiations right now with the Army. We're pretty close on the Air side for the 15 Palm. I think the stewardship, though, that you all do every day is something that's going to become more and more important in the future, and because of

13 the -- you see that bullet toward the bottom, "Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness," we have to meet that. Everyone has to be auditable, I think it's by '17. We're shooting for the end of '14 to have the first readiness audits up and running. So it's going to drive us in that direction. But realizing we've had, I think Bill, the number I saw the other day was somewhere in the late 90's, our total obligation authority for the Army Guard was seven billion. Today it's close to 25, I mean about 15, 16 billion. The Air Guard's sitting at about nine billion today, and we just have to figure out how to take that dollar and stretch it. We've done it before, and we've got to look at those things that make us effective and efficient for the force. Go to the next slide. Next slide, here we go. Our third priority is the National Guard community. This is so important today. You heard General Shinseki talk about this. The programs we

14 have, we've created quite a few programs since the war started, which are great. You can see them on there, yellow ribbon, employment, some of the things we've done for suicide prevention. Just taking care of families, taking care of soldiers and airmen. That number is going to shrink in dollars. So how do we get after that, knowing that the communities you live in have a lot of opportunities for us to use doctors. We have a program where medical doctors want to help an hour -- they want to donate an hour a month for mental health. There is a whole list of folks. You've heard General Shinseki talk about some of the VA programs. Health and Human Services has offered programs. So how do we get those into a place where a soldier or an airman or a family member can get access to that information? If you look across the bottom, joining communityforces.org is a site our J-1, Maryann Watson, Minnesota Guardsmen, she set up. We call it

15 the "No Wrong Door." So we're trying to create a clearinghouse of information at the armory level, that soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines coming off active duty, if they want to walk in know who to talk to, you know. It's there for our Guardsmen, but we're going to open it to all veterans. That's our proposal for the future. Next slide. Most of you know about the state partnership program, and on our fourth priority of forge and maintain partnerships. 65 partnerships. I would predict this time next year we'll have 69 partnerships that we're working on right now, and some of you are already aware of which ones are coming our way. We can't announce them yet, because the COCOMs are working through that. Those 65 partnerships in 2012 produced over 600 events that you all accomplished, phenomenal events. 79 co-deployments that have occurred since really 2013, with 14 countries. Those co-deployments, we just finished one that was real

16 historic this week. If you think about where Bosnia and Herzegovina were 20 years ago, they're partnered with Maryland. They just deployed six months ago with Maryland Guard, 115th MP Battalion, and they plugged in about 26 MPs out of Bosnia-Herzegovina into that unit, and they deployed, they just came home. The Minister of Defense of Bosnia welcomed them home. My political advisor was there for it, and they talked about we were consumers of security. Now we are producers of security. What's next? That was their question to Tom Nimwat this week. Where do we go? What are you doing beyond 2014 in the U.S. military? We want to be at your side. That's just one country of all of those -- sorry -- of all of those that are out there that have deployed, of the 79, and I could give you a whole list of stories there. So that is going very well. In '13, we'll do at least 600 events, and I would tell you that 9 to 13 million dollars, as you know, in the big scheme of 494 billion this year

17 defense will spend, is just ^^^^ it's not even palm dust. I will tell you that the Vice Chairman, the Chairman and SECDEF have all told me that is the best spending of dollars that they've ever seen for an engagement in an international arena, and they want to keep it going. So we will keep it going. Next slide. I want to talk just briefly about other partners. If you look at all these patches, I won't go through all of them, but these are the partners that we deal with all the time, and especially now that we have a membership on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But I will tell you there's one there at the bottom with that yellow burst around it over the United States, and it's COG, Council of Governors. You have adjutants general in here that serve with that Council, and it is fabulous. About once a month, I talk to those governors, and the Governor of Hawaii, Governor Abercrombie, usually every month he pipes in, and I

18 know he's a busy man. But he will take time to listen, and the co-chair is piped in, Governor Branstad, Governor Malloy, Governor O'Malley. They all come into this, and they do a great job for us of representing you in that Council to the Secretary of Defense and to the President. On the bottom are the partnerships that we have, both the counterdrug you all know is coming under fire from budget. It will continue to come under fire. We will try our best. Usually what happens is the cut that budget, and in 2013 it was cut by 41 percent and then Congress added money back in. Creates huge problems for you all to manage that force and our great warriors doing that mission. But we will have a counterdrug program for the coming years. We just have to work and figure out where the bottom of this is, and hopefully build it back. And as you know, Craig McKinley now leading the youth challenge, the great work that John

19 Connolly did, and Lou Cabrera on board there, we are huge fans of Youth Challenge, and we expect even more for the future. Next slide. So I put this slide up. I see Craig McKinley, because he had a tough job to do for our National Guard, and he did it extremely well. Then we decided okay, Joe Engle and I talked about this. What can we add? We've got to document it. We've got to get the Joint Chiefs' position up to the level as far as where we go, when we go there, what meetings we attend, how does the staff respond and prepare us for that. I think if you look at everything on there, if that's just the last year of events, where I represented or Joe Engle represented me sitting on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So if anyone asks you how's it going with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we are a true member. I get asked to comment on every issue that comes up, not just homeland issues, and you can see some of them on here.

20 But even more important is the value that I see bringing a member of the National Guard into the Joint Chiefs, into the NCSS, speaking with the President when something like Hurricane Sandy occurs, or Boston bombings occur. I get information directly from your adjutants general, and I can carry that straight into the Secretary. I can brief the President on it. I can talk to the OSD staff and let them know what's happening. It's almost like it's a calming effect. During Hurricane Sandy, about three or four days into it, I often wondered, as I sat around the table with Secretary Panetta and the National Security staff John Brennan, and I wondered who was talking for the Guard before we had a seat there, because truly, there was nobody that had ever served on state active duty in that room except me in 1973, in the Mississippi River floods. I was one guy that had done some state active duty over the years. So just wanted to share that with you, that we are a true member.

21 Next slide. Part of that being a true member though, you've got to ratchet up your staff, and Craig McKinley gave us a great tool in Project Muster, which is coming to a close here at the end of the month, and it's looking across the statutory legal framework that establishes the position, and it started with in January 1, we documented the positions of the Chief, National Guard Bureau, the Directors of the Army and Air National Guard. We identified what tasks they had to accomplish, and there's ongoing work under way here to take a look at now how do we strategically realign my staff, the National Guard Bureau staff, so they can function at the strategic level. Are there things that we can move around, that maybe Bill Ingram can do better and Sid Clarke can do better at the operational tactical level, dealing with the states. Oh by the way, all of this comes together in your Joint Force headquarters. So that work will be continuing on over the next six to eight months, and then eventually, by

22 next summer, we hope to have, take a look at the JTD, and figure out for your Joint Force headquarters and the National Guard Bureau, that we have valid joint positions. That is a huge undertaking, but we're set out to do that, and it's all part of being on the joint chiefs. Next slide. Just wanted to put this up for a second. You've heard a lot already. Again, I don't want to take away from the governor this morning. He did a fabulous job. But the Budget Control Act is law. If it does not change, it will have an impact on us. But we will not go back to a strategic reserve. The reason we won't go back is where we're at today. We went from 50 percent modernized equipment in the Air and Army National Guard, we're running at 90 percent modernized equipment now in the Army Guard. Not quite. We need some more J models on 130s and some other fighter upgrades. But our equipment readiness is at the highest state, I would say, than it ever has been.

23 Our full-time manning. Air Guard has always been pretty good. On the Army side, we've grown. We went from about a third of the required amount of AGR and technicians in probably '99 time frame. We're up to 72 percent of that validated requirement today. So we've grown the full-time staff. Then if we get the force structure end strength right of the Army Guard, we will actually create even instant readiness, just because we will have more positions that you can fill. So that when your units deploy, your high school students will actually be in overstrength positions. We're looking at some options like that. Next slide. Strength of the Guard. You all know this. You know, we have leaders across every civilian skill set you can think of. I am totally impressed. You know, we're looking at cyber for the future. Some of the Guardsmen and women that you have out there now doing cyber are the world's best,

24 guaranteed. They're the world's best and they're proven. They've got credentials to show that, and that's across all disciplines. I think Sid Clarke told me the other day that second bullet he really likes, expeditionary localism, security at home and abroad. That really says what you have been doing for the last 12 years and even beyond that, almost 377 years now. I would bring your attention to that last bullet on active component, institutionally and operationally, enables a strong Guard and Reserve. The reason I put that on there, we've got to be successful with our Air Force and our Army, because guess where our acquisition comes from? Guess where our research and development comes from? Guess where most of our training base comes from, entry level training? Comes from the Air Force and Army. So if they fail, we fail. So we've got to come together and work through this, and we're committed to doing that. I know your adjutant generals have committed

25 numerous hours to do that. Next slide. So I'm going to show a little video here that went out and Miles Deering took me, and Pat, we went out and flew over the Moore, Oklahoma area and saw some real devastation. But this video you'll see tells you and it shows you what a true Guardsmen is today. Go ahead. (VIDEO.) (Applause.) GENERAL GRASS: So thank you. When I saw this video, I said that is a true Guardsmen, and we couldn't have hired a marketing company to do the great job that Specialist James Kimball did for us. So when we got ready to come here and talked to the staff and worked with Oklahoma, and said can we get Specialist Kimball, because I want to give him an award. His mother and stepfather are here today celebrating their anniversary. What a great American; what a great Guardsmen. (Applause.) Presentation to Specialist James Kimball

26 GENERAL GRASS: Publish the order. MALE PARTICIPANT: This is to certify that the Secretary of the Army has awarded the Army Achievement Medal to Specialist James Kimball of the Oklahoma Army National Guard, for exceptionally meritorious achievement during the post-tornado recovery effort in Moore, Oklahoma on 20 May Specialist Kimball's compelling story, delivered with candor, described what it means to be a citizen soldier. He contributed to a positive and lasting image of National Guard Service in the eyes of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of Defense and other national leaders. Specialist Kimball's actions reflect great credit upon himself, the Oklahoma National Guard and the U.S. Army. (Applause.) GENERAL GRASS: So I've got to ask James one question. Can I still use your video as I travel around the world? SPECIALIST KIMBALL: Yes sir.

27 GENERAL GRASS: Okay, good. (Applause.) GENERAL GRASS: So I'm going to close there. I can't top that. Thanks so much, and like I said, we'll have time for questions tomorrow at the panel session. (Applause.)