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1 (2008)

handle is hein.cbhear/fdsysafsu0001 and id is 1 raw text is: AUT-ENTICATED US. GOVERNMENT INFORMATION GP DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2009 WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 2008 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met at 10 a.m., in room SD-192, Dirksen Sen- ate Office Building, Hon. Ted Stevens presiding. Present: Senators Leahy, Dorgan, Durbin, Mikulski, Murray, Ste- vens, Cochran, Domenici, and Bond. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE RESERVES STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL JACK C. STULTZ, CHIEF AND COMMANDING, UNITED STATES ARMY RESERVE OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR TED STEVENS Senator STEVENS. Gentlemen and ladies, the chairman will not be here for a while and may not be here at all this morning. I want to put his statement in the record and welcome all of you, the chiefs of the Reserve components who will testify before us on the status of the Reserve components. [The statement follows:] PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR DANIEL K. INOUYE Today the Subcommittee meets to receive testimony on the fiscal year 2009 budg- et requests for the National Guard and Reserve components. From the Reserve we welcome: Chief of the Army Reserve, General Jack Stultz; Chief of the Naval Re- serve, Admiral John Cotton; Commander of the Marine Forces Reserve, General John Bergman; and Chief of the Air Force Reserve, General John Bradley. And from the National Guard we are pleased to have: Chief of the National Guard Bureau, General Steven Blum; Vice Chief of the Army National Guard, General Clyde Vaughn; and Vice Chief of the Air National Guard, General Craig McKinley. Gentlemen, as the National Guard and Reserve components continue to transition from a strategic to operational reserve, you face significant personnel and equip- ment challenges. Currently we have thousands of guardsmen and reservists de- ployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, many of them already on their second tour. We are asking a great deal of these service members, their families, and employers. Unlike their active duty counterparts, they often do not have easy access to support serv- ices. Today we look forward to hearing what is being done to ease the strain through family support and reintegration programs. It is a credit to the dedication and patriotism of our reservists that retention lev- els remain strong despite the high operational tempo and mandated force realign- ments. We want to make sure that you have the resources required to retain these talented experienced service members, particularly those in high demand career fields. We are pleased to see that recruiting has improved for the Air National Guard, and Army and Navy Reserves, although we are concerned that many of the (1)