With spreading technology and increasing parity of foreign nations, the mere maintenance of our aging aircraft and space systems will not suffice. Simply stated, our current fleet of legacy systems cannot ensure air and space dominance in future engagements. It is these risks and concerns that underpin our persistent advocacy of program stability in our modernization and investment accounts. Our capabilitybased planning and budgeting process is the foundation to accelerate modernization while maintaining gains in readiness and people. We are investing short-term and long-term across all of our task force capabilities, balancing modifications of existing systems with the development of new systems. Air Force modernization efforts are supporting our transformation goals while continuing to develop and field needed systems, with nearly half of our investment in research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E). The aging fleet presents the Air Force with the challenge of providing the joint force commanders assets from an ever-shrinking pool of available platforms that cost more and more to maintain. To counter this trend, we are pursuing a wide range of strategies that accelerates our modernization and recapitalization efforts. We are using an integrated and systematic risk assessment system, shorter acquisition cycle times, and improved program oversight. Our goal is to integrate our combat, information, electronic warfare and support systems to create a portfolio of air and space advantages. As the Air Force has testified, our average fleet age has approximately 23 years in service. With some manufactured as early as 1955, our KC-135 fleet averages 44 years in service. We have never dealt with a force this old. Our aging aircraft are vulnerable to myriad problems, including technical surprises, vanishing vendors, and increased operational costs. Thanks to this committee, we have recently enjoyed a down payment on our recapitalization but require sustained funding to maintain the force capable of supporting the National Security Strategy and JV2020. Eventually, new acquisitions will have to replace these legacy systems. In the interim, we are finding innovative means to keep current systems operational in the near term and are taking advantage of new opportunities to employ old systems in new ways. Dealing With Aging Aircraft Issues This new OPTEMPO has demanded more of our entire fleet. Specifically, corrosion, high-cycle fatigue, and aging composites affect the Air Force's mission effectiveness and availability due to flight restrictions. Examples that epitomize the exact problem are found in a variety of fleets including the F-15Cs, A-10s, and KC135s. Averaging 20 years old, our premier legacy air dominance platform, the F-15C, suffered approximately 30 incidents of partial wing, horizontal and vertical stabilizer loss and wiring bundle fires that have resulted in many operational restrictions. Additionally, their maintenance man-hours are up 150 percent in the past 12 years. With an average fleet age of 22 years, our A-10s, which provided invaluable close air support to the joint force commander, has recently undergone inspections for wing cracks that affected 247 aircraft. Both of these cases illustrate that these problems are across the fleets versus aircraft tail number specific. None of our aging aircraft fleets needs recapitalizing more than our tanker fleet. Previous Air Force testimony has continually stressed the importance of this fleet to the Air Force and to the Nation in terms of the global war on terror. The crux of our challenge is how the Air Force will continue to provide these irreplaceable assets to the joint warfighter considering their limited availability at ever increasing costs. At the beginning of January 2004, 36 percent of the KC-135 fleet was unavailable including those in depot and those unit possessed but not mission capable. Of those that are available, mission capable rates continue trending downward. In addition to the unknown technical "surprises" which the fleet may encounter, known severe corrosion of this Eisenhower-era asset continues to concern us. Organic programmed depot maintenance (PDM) and contract PDM prices to maintain the KC135 continue to rise. As many of you know, the Air Force has been very active on this front in an attempt to continue to fill the joint force commander's requirements for power projection. The Air Force fully supports the latest decision by Secretary Rumsfeld to suspend the 767 Tanker Lease Program until all reviews are complete. We continue to work cooperatively with the DOD Inspector General to reach a speedy and definitive conclusion to their assessment. In testimony last week, I reemphasized the Air Force's requirement to recapitalize the tanker fleet and discussed the operational capabilities needed for a new tanker. The Air Force believes that whether this is accomplished through the normal procurement process for which over $4 billion of funding is already programmed across the FYDP for a KC-X replacement aircraft, or through the lease program, which, as authorized in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2004, will accelerate the recapitalization process, will provide this Nation a vital capability. In accordance with the 2004 NDAA, the Air Force will conduct the Analysis of Alternatives using a federally funded research and development center or other entity independent of the Department of Defense. This AOA is important in shaping decisions for future recapitalization, and we expect it to be complete in fiscal year 2005. Another important tool in shaping our decisions was implemented last May. The new Air Force Fleet Viability Board establishes a continuous, repeatable process for fleet assessment much like current Navy boards. Currently, the board is reviewing the C-5A. This ongoing assessment will likely report on or around 31 March 2004. Candidates for future boards will be reviewed annually to consider new concerns and should produce a comprehensive standardized approach to examining entire fleets of aircraft. Aging Infrastructure In addition to air and space platforms, we must address our growing deficiencies in infrastructure. Improvements we secure for our air and space systems will be limited without addressing our foundational support systems. Deteriorated airfields, hangars, waterlines, electrical networks are just some of the infrastructure elements warranting immediate attention. Our investment strategy, to enable and modernize our installation capabilities and provide quality working and living environments, focuses on three simultaneous steps. First, we must dispose of excess facilities. Second, we must fully sustain our facilities and systems so they remain effective through their expected life. Third, we must establish a steady investment program to restore and modernize our critical facilities and infrastructure systems, while continually advancing our ability to protect our people and resources from the growing threat of terrorism. We have accelerated our housing investment and expanded our privatization program. We have programmed projects to eliminate inadequate housing at all continental United States (CONUS) bases by 2007, except at four northern-tier locations where it will be completed by 2008. We will improve more than 3,600 units at 26 bases and support privatization of 7,000 units at 7 bases. Committed to sustained improvements, the Air Force has increased this year's MILCON request by 10 percent. The Air Force has embarked on a strategy for three world-class depots and has increased funding for essential depot facilities upgrades and equipment modernization as part of our "Depot Maintenance Strategy and Master Plan." When you consider our level of effort across the entire infrastructure spectrum, we plan to invest more than $4.8 billion in fiscal year 2005. A READY FORCE OF AIRMEN A ready force is founded on its people. The 700,000 men and women that comprise our Total Air Force-active duty, Guard and Reserve, and our civilians-are the best America has to offer. They are officers, enlisted, civilians, and contractors from every corner of the country and every walk of life. These world-class airmen are the key ingredients to sustaining our record of success. Without exception we have been and will always be dedicated to recruiting, training, and retaining professional airmen and wholeheartedly believe that the Air Force can make no greater investment and have no greater resource than in our people. They are our #1 weapon system. The bottomline on personnel readiness is that our people are ready. We are sustaining our personnel readiness rates in the face of higher OPTEMPO, manning shortages, and reduced training opportunities. ONE alerts and OEF/OIF deployments have left our operational units with less capability and opportunity to train. The Air Force fully funded the flying program in fiscal year 2004 and will continue to fly 100 percent of the flying program. For the past 3 years, the Air Force has executed its budgeted O&M flying hours without requesting additional funding for contingency flying hours. Our airmen are gaining real-world experience you cannot create in a training environment. Today, over 70 percent of our rated aircrew is combat experienced. However, many of our aircrew instructors have been pulled to fulfill priority operational requirements, making it difficult to train new aircrew to relieve the combat stress. This is especially true of our LD/HD assets which have been working at "surge" capacity. We recognize that some of the most significant detractors to unit readiness are lengthy, frequent deployments. Once airmen return from deployments they require up to a 90-day reconstitution period, primarily for personnel training. Maintaining our AEF rotation schedule helps stability and predictability, but most of our stressed career fields are exceeding the 90-day goal. While the Air Force has taken steps to mitigate the impact of lost training, sustained operations will remain a challenge. As long as the current OPTEMPO persists, we expect Air Force training to remain at current levels improve, if not decline, as training currencies and continuation training are harder to achieved. Recruiting We remain committed to an All-Volunteer Force. Our volunteer airmen are dedicated, experienced, smart, disciplined, and representative of our country as a whole. We recruit and promote the unique and diverse experiences and capabilities people from all backgrounds, all races, and all religions contribute to our combat capability. Last year the Air Force completed one of its best recruiting years ever. This year, we expect to meet our annual accession goal of 37,000 by September 2004. With an increased advertising budget, enhanced hiring incentives and enlistment bonuses, and improved recruiter manning, the Air Force is making enlisted recruiting a priority, and it is paying off. The Air Force also continues to attract the country's best and brightest college graduates to join our officer corps. We have introduced additional incentives to recruit more students into Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), especially those with science and engineering proficiencies. We continually adjust our goals to meet new force requirements and the demands of a competitive marketplace. Training The Air Force requires sophisticated airmen who are trained to leverage technology and ready to perform in a fluid environment-air and space leaders for the 21st century. This will require targeted investments in the next generation of airmen, from the ground up and throughout their careers. To that end, the Air Force has introduced a coordinated effort to address all aspects of an airman's career development, professional education, and assignments in sum rather than individually. This deliberate force development effort generates policies tailored to the needs of the individual airman throughout his career. Comprehensive in scope, our training is doctrinally based and focused on three levels: tactical, operational, and strategic. Force Shaping Our number one personnel challenge is adapting to the new steady state—a higher tempo of operations and a shifting skill mix requirement. With a 30-percent reduction in manpower since 1990 and a significant increase in worldwide taskings over that same period, the Air Force is experiencing a dramatic jump in operations and personnel tempo. We have discovered that while the number of airmen is adequate, the mix of skill sets and the military/civilian/contractor ratio must be adjusted to reflect new realities. Recognizing the new demands placed on us by the war on terrorism, we initiated a comprehensive manpower review to determine relative stress amongst career fields and to explore options to alleviate that stress. Our analysis shows we need to shift manpower to stressed career fields to meet the demands of this new steady state, and we are in the process of doing this. We have realigned personnel into our most stressed specialties and hired additional civilians and contractors to free military members to focus on military duties. We have also made multi-million dollar investments in technology to reduce certain manpower requirements. We have redirected our training and accession systems and have cross-trained personnel from specialties where we are over strength to alleviate stressed career fields. Supporting the Secretary of Defense's vision of moving forces "from the bureaucracy to the battlefield." Retention We have found that our high OPTEMPO and uneven workload are major determinants in an airman's decision to leave the Air Force. Because the skill-sets of our airmen are not easily replaced, we expend considerable effort to retain our people, especially those in high-technology fields and those in whom we have invested sig nificant education and training. In 2003, we reaped the benefits of an aggressive retention program, aided by a renewed focus and investment on education and individual development, enlistment and retention bonuses, targeted military pay raises, and quality of life improvements. Our fiscal year 2003 enlisted retention statistics tell the story. Retention for the first term airmen stood at 61 percent and exceeded our goal by 6 percent. Retention for our second term and career airmen was also impressive, achieving 73 percent and 95 percent respectively. Continued investment in people rewards their service, provides a suitable standard of living, and enables us to attract and retain the professionals we need. Retention of pilots, navigators, and air battle managers remains a major concern. Our flexible Aviator Continuation Pay (ACP) program is one important part of our broad-based solution. Encouragingly, the ACP long-term initial take rate rose sharply to 65 percent in fiscal year 2003 from 47 percent in fiscal year 2002. Retention for high tech specialties is also a concern as the pull from industry is strong. This draw is exacerbated by long, frequent deployments in many of our high tech career fields. While high retention is in itself great news, we are faced with the fact that the Air Force is over its authorized end strength and our skill mix is out of balance. Being overstrength, however, serves as a mixed blessing that allows us to rebalance the skills without exacerbating manning problems in the stressed career fields as we draw down to authorized strength. Force shaping permits us to tackle these challenges smartly. The Air Force has reduced its civilian workforce by nearly 100,000 since 1990, leaving only 10 percent of today's Air Force civilians with less than 10 years in service and over 40 percent eligible to retire in 5 years. We must revitalize our professional occupations with new hires while minimizing the impact on the existing civilian employees. Force shaping initiatives to restructure the civilian work force and enactment of the National Security Personnel System (NSPS) to provide the department with some streamlined authorities. Future Total Force Like never before in the history of the Air Force, we are a total force. Mission success demands the interdependence of active duty, Air Reserve Component (ARC), civilian workforce, and contractors. The ARC continues to be an integral part of the AEF as a total force, and accounts for more than three-fourths of our tactical airlift capability, two-thirds of our strategic airlift capability, two-thirds of our air refueling capability, and one-third of our strike fighters. The Reserve component also makes significant contributions to our rescue and support missions, and has an increasing presence in space, intelligence and information operations. In all, the Reserve component provides a ready force requiring minimum preparation for deploying in support of worldwide operations. As such, they need compensation, benefits, and entitlements commensurate with these increased responsibilities. We are committed to using ARC volunteers versus mobilization whenever possible to allow the units and members the flexibility needed to meet combatant commander requirements. We are also reviewing our ARC manpower to minimize involuntary mobilization of ARC forces for day-to-day, steady state operations while ensuring they are prepared to respond in times of crisis. Since September 11, the Guard and Reserve have played a greater role in the country's defense than ever before. But there is a limit to how many demands we can place on our ARC forces in the current environment. Historically the ANG and AFRC gain nearly 25 percent of separating active duty members. Continued high OPTEMPO may threaten this source of recruiting and force the ARC to explore alternative options to make up the loss. We are also closely monitoring this situation and are taking steps to relieve the pressure on the Guard and Reserve. We are in the second year of our agreement to employ Army National Guard soldiers for force protection (FP) duties at Air Force installations, temporarily mitigating our FP shortfalls in security forces. We are executing an aggressive plan to rapidly burn down the need for Army augmentation by reducing our manpower requirements through the insertion of technology (to enable manpower avoidance), realigning current manpower within end strength limits, and maximizing use of ARC volunteers to replace departing Army National Guard soldiers. Coupled with civilian conversions and contracting options, we are expanding total force (civilian, contract, active duty, and ARC) involvement while at the same time reducing the stress on our forces and the associated risks to our resources. CONCLUSION The greatest testament to Air Force readiness is our continued success in projecting power around the globe and protecting America and her allies from potential enemies. The Air Force, along with each of the members of this joint team, is proud of our operational successes over the past 2 years, but we cannot rest on our accomplishments. When our President and this Nation called last year we were ready. Within 21 days, this joint team had effectively broken coherent resistance in Baghdad and collapsed the regime's control. Five days later, the joint and coalition team captured the last major Iraqi city, unseated a despotic government and liberated approximately 25 million Iraqis. The readiness that made the Air Force's air and space power contribution possible was the result of the hard work of the thousands of airmen and civilians of our total force. Our success was also a tribute to this committee's leadership and its staunch support at such a critical time in our Nation's history. We stand ready. Ready to project power to any point on the face of the Earth. Lethal and responsive, America's airmen stand ready to act-whenever and wherever they are called. Mr. Chairman, Senator Akaka, thank you for your support. Senator MCCAIN. Thanks very much, General. STATEMENT LT. GEN. JAN C. HULY, USMC, DEPUTY COM- General HULY. Senator Akaka, Senator McCain, Senator Inhofe, Senator Nelson, and Senator Cornyn, thank you for the opportunity to appear here today. Let me start by thanking you, thanking the entire committee, for their continued and steadfast support for the issues and the programs that are of vital interest and importance to the readiness of your Marine Corps. I would ask that my prepared statement be placed in the official record. I am proud Senator MCCAIN. Without objection, your entire statement will be made part of the record. Thank you, General. General HULY. Thank you, sir. That concludes [Laughter.] Senator MCCAIN. Thank you very much. Go ahead, please, General. General HULY. I'm proud and honored to be representing the 215,000 marines, both active and Reserve, in the Corps today. They are amongst the finest women and men America has to offer. Their performance in OEF and OIF, in support of the ongoing global war on terrorism, has been superb. But, rest assured, the Marine Corps is not resting on its laurels. Currently, we're in the process of deploying 25,000 combat-ready active-duty and Reserve component marines and sailors from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force to Iraq, and 1,500 marines and sailors from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force have recently been deployed to Haiti. Our Reserve units and individuals are combat-ready, and have rapidly integrated with the Active Force, demonstrating the effectiveness of the Marine Corps total force. We're set and ready to continue our role in securing the security and interests of our Nation with forward-deployed naval expeditionary forces tailored for the current operating environment. |