‘What More Can We Do?’: Dan Sullivan Presses General About Army Not Meeting Recruiting Goals

Senator Sullivan thank you madam chair and you know I want to begin just uh because a lot of these hearings are all about challenges and problems I want to begin by just complimenting you gentlemen and the forces you lead I mean there's a million reasons to compliment you but I'll just throw out a couple anecdotal ones the Navy Admiral with regard to the Eisenhower deployment the Carney that I got a report saying it shot down close to 80 incoming uh missiles and drones but fired by the houthis I mean I know they're heading home right now but those sailors did an amazing job the Marine Corps General Mahoney you know the full audit I think that's actually a really big deal and a great example Air Force uh General s the the work that you did last year and a half General van herk called it Super Bowl level actions up in Alaska when we had these spy balloons and the Russian bear bombers coming in and we were intercepting shooting down spy balloons intercepting them intercepting Russian Bear bombers young 25-year-old female F-22 Pilots doing I mean the work that was going on up there which you make look so simple was remarkable um General Mangus I think you're given uh pride and hope you just that5 millimeter ammo look some of my colleagues here are saying hey our industrial base can't produce like we used to that's baloney right the Army showing that right now the way you taking that uh curve on the production of our ammo is remarkable um and even you know with the space force General gutl you're the some of us were skeptical myself included the way you've stood up I think a lot of people have a lot of pride in the in the space force um your uniforms are almost as sharp as the Marine cores so that's another thing that I think quite impressive it's hard to do that um so thank you right there's a lot going on here that's very important but I do want to get to some of the challenges let me start uh General Mangus with you and the Army's recruiting goals and the struggle to meet those right one of the reasons the Army is shrinking which it is is because we can't get enough Americans to volunteer we are working on some of the issues Senator blumthal and I actually are working on issues of access we're going to probably legislate that high schools and other places where we got much better stronger open access for recruiters how are you feeling about that general what more can we do are we finally kind of hitting the bottom and coming up I mean if we keep missing recruiting goals at the level that some of the services have been that's going to be the ultimate crisis because we can't man our Force thank you Senator um so we acknowledge last two years we missed the Mark um and not by a little bit Yeah the numbers were huge that you missed by secretary and the chief and the entire Army have taken this on as a mission that we have to have to succeed for all the reasons you pointed out so our benchmarks this year are 55,000 in the door another 5,000 in the delayed entry program for next year and given the trajectories that we're on right now uh we had a very good spring and we're optimistic that we will meet those goals so what did you do different like what happened what's the corrective measures that you can learn from but other services could learn from and I think many of these lessons are Universal but where all start is the restructuring of our Recruiting Command made it a direct report to uh to the Army we're going to up gun that to a three star we're professionalizing our recruiting Force both on the warrant officer side and the NCO side increasing the numbers that are actually in the field looking at their locations expanding the population is probably one of the biggest things instead of focused on Juniors Andor I in high school we're expanding that into college age and are you getting access to those uh institutions to your satisfaction high schools and colleges we we believe for the most part yes sir there's some challenges in certain parts of the country uh but the receptiveness is getting better and then the last thing that uh that we've done is what I mentioned in my remarks and that's the future future soldiers Prep course we brought 18,000 through that program that would have not otherwise been able to meet the standard uh we bring them in and whether it's a an academic or a cognitive or a physical issue and we bring them up to our standard before we let them come through and that's the folks that have gone through that program that 18,000 in excess and 90% of them have met the standard on the back end of that good great well look if there's more that we can do is we're looking to mark up the ndaa um let us know um um Madam chair I have a bunch other questions but I'm going to uh my time's expired so I'll turn over to my colle than

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Length: 5min 1sec (301 seconds)

Published: Sat May 04 2024