Author: guard7000

At the heart of many of the budget challenges facing the Defense Department is the devastating effect of the sequestration (across the board spending cuts) provision. Our government’s approach to deficit reduction has become rigid and unresponsive to the ever changing security needs of our nation. Sequestration, though eased somewhat this year, specifically targets the defense budget for the next five years.
In August 2011, Congress passed the Budget Control Act (BCA) to resolve the debt ceiling mess. Lawmakers in both chambers passed this act with bipartisan support and President Obama signed it into law. The legislation included $1.2 trillion in cuts and directed that a joint House and Senate super-committee be created to find another $1.2 trillion by Nov. 23, 2011. The super-committee failed in its mission and sequestration went into effect in 2013.
Each year, budget cuts are split evenly between non-war defense spending and discretionary domestic spending. Sounds fair until you realize that the overall Defense portion of the Federal Budget is only 17 percent! Therefore, the BCA was skewed against Defense programs from the start with disproportionate sequestration cuts coming from America’s military.
DoD’s portion of sequestration is $52 billion per year through 2021 on top of the $487 billion already agreed to with the Army absorbing the lion’s share of the cut. Over the past two years sequestration has managed to set America on a path to reduced military readiness and security. Sequestered budgets are rapidly shrinking the nation’s military force to unprecedented levels thereby creating units less able to accomplish their mission, particularly in a world that is increasingly uncertain and dangerous (Ukraine).
With sequestration, Congress has driven a wedge between our active military forces and our reserve and National Guard forces, most notably in the United States Army. It has created unnecessary divisiveness, and acrimony within the U.S. military between servicemembers and leaders who just months ago were serving side by side in combat.

Please write to Congress and urge them to apply deficit reduction measures more evenly across the federal budget, and stop sequestration. Go to AUSA.org, go to Legislative Agenda, click contact Congress.

Today, the U.S. Army Reserve celebrates its 106th birthday. Generations of Reserve soldiers have followed in the footsteps of servicemembers before them who embraced the nation’s call to duty by volunteering to serve as Citizen-Soldiers in the Army’s Reserve force. The Army Reserve is an important element in The Army multi-component unit force, training with Active and National Guard units so that all three components work as a fully integrated team.

The Army Reserve performs a complementary role to the Active component, providing combat support and combat service support functions to enable the Army to ramp up its capabilities to protect combat forces and sustain mobilization. The Army Reserve makes up only 20 percent of the Army’s organized units, but it provides about half of the Army’s combat support and a quarter of the Army’s mobilization base expansion capability.

The former Chief of Staff of the Army, Gen. Gordon Sullivan, wrote the following letter to the Washington Post last month.

I read with dismay the December 26 article, “For Military, Benefits and Reform are Challenge”, which demonizes our troops as unworthy of the benefits they receive while ignoring the challenges, sacrifices and hardships military personnel and their families face while providing the nation’s defense as volunteers. Military personnel costs, described as “burgeoning” and making up nearly half the Pentagon’s budget, are in fact approximately 30 percent of the budget as they have been for the past 30 years. The growth in those costs that “must be tamed” is in fact a ten-year catch up effort enacted by Congress to close a pay gap that had grown to 14 percent. Parity has been achieved and that growth will level off. Pay and benefits must be competitive because almost three of four recruitment-age Americans cannot qualify for military service, and those left have other career options. If military pay and benefits are the same as those of civilians, there is little incentive to join an organization with the inherent risks of military life. One of the world’s richest nations can afford a military compensation and benefits package that matches the dangers and hardships its defense personnel must endure.

Gordon R. Sullivan, Arlington

The head of the National Guard Bureau and the top soldier in the Army shared different views on the capabilities of the National Guard during remarks to reporters last week in Washington, D.C.
Gen. Frank J. Grass, the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, and Gen. Ray T. Odierno, the Army Chief of Staff, spoke two days apart during luncheons at the National Press Club. The set-up highlighted their contrasting views on the Guard’s role as defense officials move to restructure forces after a decade of war and with tight budget constraints.

Serving as a backdrop to their comments, the Army wants to cut the Army Guard to 315,000 soldiers, while also removing all combat helicopters and other aircraft from its arsenal. The Guard wants to maintain an end-strength of 345,000 and has pushed back against the aviation plan.

National Guard supporters argue that the Guard can provide combat troops at a fraction of the cost of the active-component Army. Gen. Odierno has stated that the active component has a higher state of readiness because of a greater amount of training. “They’re trained and ready to do things at a higher level because they spend every day focused on that,” he said. “Our National Guard, who’s done an incredible job in the last 10 years, trains 39 days a year.” That difference is why, he said, the two components aren’t interchangeable. He argued that their capabilities should be seen as complementary.

Speaking two days later at the same podium, Gen. Grass said he’s hard-pressed to find a member of the Guard who trains only 39 days a year. He emphasized that diligence in training is essential to success, particularly with reliance on rapidly changing technology. “And between drills, preparing for drills, professional development, course work, and more, National Guard members are putting in the necessary time needed to maintain their capabilities. The concept of the Guard and Reserve training just 39 days a year”, he said, “doesn’t exist anymore”

The U.S. Army General who led U.S. forces through some of the most deadly years of the Iraq war says he opposes sending U.S. combat troops in response to the recent gains in that country by Islamic militants. General Ray Odierno, the current Army Chief of Staff, said Tuesday he is disappointed by the Iraqi government’s loss of control in key cities in the restive western province of Anbar. Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, he said the proper U.S. approach now is to remain engaged diplomatically to help Iraqi government leaders get their political system back on track. Odierno said that despite Iraq’s recent setbacks, it still has the potential to become a strong U.S. partner, though that hopeful prospect now appears “a bit shaky.”

In July, the Senate Armed Services Committee rejected a Pentagon proposal to increase Tricare fees and perscription co-payments. The Committee did not include the Pentagon proposal in its version of the 2014 Defense Authorization bill (Senate 1197). Therefore, increases to Tricare Prime enrollment fees and pharmacy co-pays are restricted to no more than 1.7%, the 2013 federal cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). According to Military Times, since the 2013 COLA increase would not boost pharmacy co-pays by more than a dollar, the co-pays would most likely remain at their same amount.

Let me summarize the recent Legislative Update from AUSA. The ongoing budget uncertainty and sequestration is wreaking havoc on the Defense Department at a time when the world is not getting any safer. The news this weekend was stark: Officials ordered the temporary closure of over two dozen U.S. diplomatic posts, issued a global travel warning to Americans because of a terrorist threat, and are evacuating the U.S. Embassy in Yemen
As sequestration continues the Strategic Choices and Management Review presented Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel with two approaches to reduce force structure and force modernization. The first approach would trade away size for high-end capability. This would further shrink the active Army to between 380,000 to 450,000 troops, reduce the number of carrier strike groups from 11 to 8, draw down the Marine Corps from 182,000 to between 150,000 and 175,000, and retire older Air Force bombers. This choice would result in a force that would be technologically superior, but would be much smaller and less robust, especially if threats occurred in different regions of the world.
The second approach would trade away high-end capability for size. Limited cuts would be made to ground forces, ships, and aircraft, but modernization programs would be curtailed, cyber enhancements would be slowed, and special operations forces would be reduced. Either approach would stifle our ability to provide and sustain modern equipment to troops all over the world and damage the viability of America’s private-sector industrial base.
AUSA President Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, USA, Ret., is shocked that Congress continues to leave sequestration in place. In a letter to House and Senate leadership last week he said that, “The effects of continuing to impose the costs of sequestration on the Department of Defense will cause the Army to loose effectiveness at all levels. The sad legacy of the sequestration cuts will be a, “hollow Army” with furloughed civilians, tiered levels of unit readiness, reduced flying hours, deferred battle loss replacement, and cancelled Soldier training; all that lower professional leader development and unit readiness.”
Worse, President Obama told congressional Democrats that the Pentagon should get no more attention than many other areas of the budget with respect to sequestration. Even the Washington Post was alarmed by his message; stating in an editorial that the President “cannot act as though the Defense Department’s sequester cuts are equivalent in consequence to every other item in the budget. The country’s defense is a core responsibility of the federal government, and its armed forces are critical to the nation’s ability to exert leadership, maintain alliances, and preserve the nation’s safety.”
Please join us and contact your members of Congress to urge them to pass legislation that will end sequestration. Visit the Legislative Agenda page on AUSA’s website http://www.ausa.org. Click on the “Contact Congress” link and then on the prepared letter “Stop Sequestration Now” to let your Representative and Senators know that it is time to act.

PRESS RELEASE

“Our Community Salutes” (OCS)

Second annual ceremony recognizes and honors military-bound high school seniors in Delaware – May1, 2013 – New Castle, DE

Delaware Chapter, Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) and Wilmington University (WU) conducted the second annual ‘Our Community Salutes’ event at Wilmington University’s New Castle, DE campus on May 1st from 6-8pm, to recognize and honor the Delaware high school seniors (and their parents) who have chosen to enlist into the military after graduation this spring.

Over 140 people attended the event, including local celebrities, area college officials, representatives from ESGR, Red Cross, Military OneSource, the Blue Star Mothers, and the Delaware Military Heritage and Education Foundation.  Sponsors included Navy Federal Credit Union, Summit Aviation, AAA MidAtlantic, and Delaware City Refining Co.  Several high ranking military officers attended, and the Delaware Military Academy provided a color guard and an exhibition drill team.  29 high school seniors from all over Delaware attended with friends and family.

The event was headlined by Tim Furlong, NBC News Philadelphia, as the emcee.  Featured speakers included Brigadier General Carol Timmons (Assistant Adjutant General – Air, Delaware National Guard), Brigadier General (Retired) Terry L. Wiley, and Command Chief Master Sergeant James M. Smith (436^th Airlift Wing, Dover Air Force Base).  Student enlistees received Letters of Appreciation from U.S. Senator Tom Carper, U.S. Representative John Carney, and from the State of Delaware House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committees.

Sequestration formally arrived late Friday night and is probably here to stay. Whether or not it remains in its current form remains to be seen.

Despite weeks of dire warnings and a classic case of Washington finger-pointing, it appears that Congress and the White House have already moved on to the next fiscal crisis which is the continuing resolution that expires March 27.

The House is scheduled to vote Thursday on a straightforward continuing resolution that would set federal spending through the rest of the current fiscal year without addressing the sequester cuts and other potentially contentious questions.

The measure will pair a continuing resolution for most of government with newly written Defense and Military Construction-VA spending bills. While providing no additional funds to the Pentagon or the VA, the new spending bills would allow them to better manage the effects of the sequester.

The President had already indicated his willingness to work together to avoid a government shutdown.

Regardless, as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke pointed out in hearings last week, granting greater flexibility for the sequestration cuts might bring better policy results, but would not significantly affect the impact of the sudden reduction in federal spending.

Here is what we do know so far:

* For the remaining seven months of the fiscal year, the defense budget will shrink by $42.7 billion while non-defense programs will take a $28.7 billion hit

* Most of the reductions will come from discretionary spending

* If federal employees are furloughed, it will not begin until April at the earliest

* Military personnel pay and allowances will not be impacted by the sequester, nor will military personnel face furloughs

* Termination of base support contracts as well as military community and base activities would not be felt until early April

* Civilian furloughs could affect military hospitals and clinics because civilians make up 40 percent of the workforce. Patients who currently receive care at military treatment facilities may be forced to seek case in the private sector at an increased cost to the Defense Department and the taxpayer

* Commissaries may have to close one day a week

* Child care services, base schools, teen programs and family services may also be impacted as funding tightens

As we have said on many occasions, this is no way to do business. We agree with the Army’s Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno who said that what the Army needs most is some budget predictability through several years so that end-strength, modernization and readiness can be carefully balanced so we can avoid a weakened force.