It is my pleasure and my honor to introduce our keynote speaker who is the assistant secretary of the army. He assumed his position following confirmation by the u. S. Senate in mid january of this year. His responsibilities include supervising Manpower Personnel and reserve Component Affairs to the department of the army and is the principal advisor of the policy of human resources, training, readiness, military health sales, equal opportunity in marketing among others which makes it striking that he finds time in his schedule to come talk with us today and we are grateful for that. Dr. Wardynski is a graduate of the Us Military Academy and hold same masters of Public Policy and a phd in policy analysis. During his 30 year career he served as a special weapons officer within the United States and in korea. He spent 10 years as an associate member of economics where he was also the director of the us armies office of economic and Manpower Analysis advising Senior Leaders on officer retention Talent Management and marketing. My favorite piece of the introduction is that he created the awardwinning stateofthe art Americas Army game which served as a Key Recruiting tool for the service as well as the virtual army experience. Im expecting we should all ask him questions about that after. [ laughter ] among military awards and decorations are the distinguished Service Medal and merit Service Medals. Please welcome dr. Wardynski. [ applause ] well it is afternoon. Good afternoon everybody, its terrific to be here. On behalf of the secretary of the army i bring you greetings. The chief of staff of the army, i bring you greetings. I think those of you who have served for your service and the rest of you for your attention. What i wanted to do was touch on some of the points brought up in the last session, perhaps add background in color to them, and talk about perhaps the flip side of this which is could the United States ever go back to a draft army . I would lead you to a quick conclusion. I doubt it. The draft army ended in 1973 and 69 as youve been told. The National Commission on the all volunteer army was formed by a gentleman who became secretary of defense gates. One of the Commission Members took note that a volunteer army could probably work during periods of peace but in a period of conflict and stress upon the army it likely would not work. That was an academic point until a day in september 2001. They had been on a flight out of New York Newark airport. Next was the one that took off and crashed in pennsylvania. I didnt know those folks were on the plane but by the time that i landed i knew the United States was in some kind of difficulty. My mom called me and when i got to the burger king, my plane was grounded. She said im so glad you are still alive. Im like, okay. My mom doesnt call every day so it was a little unusual. I said why wouldnt i be alive . And she said we thought you were in the pentagon today and that you may have been on the plane attack on the pentagon which i didnt know about. The plane indeed did hit the pentagon and had killed my boss who was in charge of army personnel. If i had been in the pentagon i may have been in that area but i wasnt. I sometimes go by the g3 of the army, gen. Larry ellis, to study what could be done about patriot missiles and something more mobile. If they had done a little more homework the could have done anything the United States would have given them because their defense became a key concern. I never dreamt the last time i go to the weapons i would see defense weapons in the parking lot. A few days later i had to take a train down from west point where i was the director of the office of economic and Manpower Analysis. I was going to to meet the gentleman who has the job that i have now that point. If you are not familiar with the secretary of the army you had the secretary in overall control of the army. The chief of staff of the army, the senior military officer is his advisor. The secretary has several assistance,. General counsel installations and the reserve affairs which has a fairly large portfolio and probably about 60 of the armys budget. And all things human to include Training Operations and mobilization. I was there to see mr. Brown on the topic of the all volunteer army. The United States by that time clearly was in a war and we were still figuring out who we were at war with but it was a pretty good indication that it was going to be a serious undertaking. Mr. Brown wanted me to come down to talk to them about how we might hold the volunteer army together. Went into his office. My office is sort of where the whole is today. His was in a different part of the pentagon, the g1 office. I went in and a person i quickly thought was a crazy woman was a political appointee so he couldnt get rid of her i guess. But she was parading him about the need to reinstitute a draft and why wasnt he beginning mobilization and calling for the Selective Service . He finally heard what she had to say. They looked at me and i looked at him quizzically and was like , where did she come from . He looked at me and said so what are we going to do . At that point forward, the outfit that i ran, and my comrade here in arms, 80 of the time was how do we hold a volunteer army together for an indeterminate period of war which will stretch probably very close to its limits . We spent a good bit of time worrying about that. Many of the ideas that we returned to were not that novel and that was general maxwell mad max at they called him. A littleknown individual but one i think the volunteer army is living off of. As the panel discussed, the army was struggling. I was a cadet at west point. Morale at west point wasnt particularly high. The class of 72 is not manned. It was the first time in history it could not fill the core of cadets. My classmates on the topic of hair tended to be a longhaired bunch. Officers tended to have short hair and it had more to do with getting a date than anything else. It was a curious time in our history and at that point there was a lot of concern about the volunteer army. There was concern about qualification scores and the quality of the force as you have discussed. The army was not particularly happy with the way things were going so general was sent out to crew recruiting command which was in chicago at fort sheridan. Very close to america obviously in the middle of a big city and his mission was to make the all volunteer army work. He brought in at that time the best minds that he could find and there were a lot of them. The army at that time was very much in the vein of a thing called programming planning budgeting execution system. Was brought on board in the army was bludgeoned with that in the early days and the army had formed occupations to do with quantitative analysis of matters of budget and they brought in the same folks in to deal with matters of recruiting analysis. These officers began work of setting the needs down to a level of occupation skills required and intelligence levels and so forth. And then, trying to map that against what they could draw out of america. In the early days it was a struggle and for some random reason he had requested an officer from west point to join his team. As his team was completing the plan of action this officer from west point stood up and said you dont know what youre doing. It is not a command of controlled environment, it is a market. You must go into labor markets of the United States of america and compete. You must recruit. So, its not really a volunteer army. The army must compete in labor markets to draw in the youth of america. There are a number of other uses of their time to join the military and serve. From that point, gen. Thurman said you work for me now and created the office of Economic Analysis at west point which is all the economist were. He was a big believer in competing analysis. From that point forward the analytic pieces begin to fall into place and they studied advertising and things like jingles, the army college fund, the programs put into place and any number of incentives. Ultimately you know the history. Things began to turn around and i would say by 1983 the volunteer army was privet performing quite well in terms of meeting the needs of america because it had a volunteer army and the medes the needs of the army with a good supply of Young Americans willing to serve on terms that met the needs of the army and have the attributes that they called for. Generally as it was brought up today, when i concluded my remarks i would argue that we are very close to 1983 again in terms of a big change in direction in the United States army with regard to how we are going to operate within the volunteer army. I will hold that for just a few moments. There we go. The last panel was a great precursor. Theyve told you things im going to tell you again but a little more structure to think about how the army operates today, and maybe get to my premise that will be very difficult to drink bring a draft back. First, you can see the structure of the army. We call that the total force, the guard, the reserves, and the active component. The reserve is closely linked to the active army and that the secretary and i had a great deal of control over it, how its funded, structured, and all of that. But then you have 54 other armies that comprise the National Guard. He typically belonged to the governors but secretaries or strong authorities there with well when regard with regards to document training and so forth. Until federalized they are under the control of the governors. In the time of vietnam, this was the total army of about 2. 1 million. The active component was very large relative to that 1. 5 million. When you look at the army today its quite a bit smaller. The active is now the minority, not the majority. Active is about 478,000 soldiers by the end of this year with the guard being the next biggest component in the reserves. Each of those serve a different function, heavy and combat formation, reserve and specialty things, a lot of medicine and things like that. As you can see, the early army total the active is not that large. As you can imagine that means the active with ongoing collaboration and participation are the other two components. Thats not an accident. Melvin layered at the end of vietnam and most likely political reasons measures at national will concluded it would not be a good thing again to send the army to war without bringing online the rest of the population. Im a bit of a mental freeman myself. The long history of the United States i think there have been 30, 40 years of drafts in the normal course of affairs we did not have a draft. When we did have a draft and towards the end of vietnam the draft was falling on such a of americas youth, Something Like for Young Americans in every age group, it was no longer a universal on the young and was a very uneven tax. That was not a good attribute for the army and was not a good thing to send the army to war without a Firm Commitment from the country that it ought to go to war. One that would require significant level of effort would therefore require significant mobilization of reserves which would bring political early and not later on and could perhaps have raised some questions that folks today talked about in terms of 1965 versus future engagements that the army might participate in. So that was people, this is money. I did a lot with money. 100 billion which is quite a lot of money. As you can see here on the left was the distribution. 25 billion was a lot of money in the 60s. It gives you a feel for inflation. You can see that the black is Everything Else the army is doing and the price of the human parts of the army. You can see the guard and reserve were small pieces of the puzzle. One third of total Army Spending, the active component. Today the human is about one third of Army Spending but the active component is about 27 . That tells you a lot. If you follow the money it will tell you what they value. We highly value the reserve because they make a significant component of the total force and a great component of our ability to wage war. In terms of magnitude but the other thing that is important is that it was about half the size that it was but allocation of resources for the human component, now the volunteer component is about the same which gives you an idea of the shift and resources that had to take place to make the volunteer army work. The last panel touched on that as well. Folks were worried about the commitment of resources it would take to draw Young Americans in without taxing and drafting them and get them to come in as volunteers. Another thing to note is that the United States in small ways than large have been at war a good bit of the time the volunteer army has been in existence. From the left to the right is years, north to south this total Army Strength. Even as Army Strength was coming down the number of engagements were going. Some are not particularly long and didnt require significant formations from the army. Grenada, libya, panama. Others require substantial effort but as you notice after the came down in vietnam in the end of the cold war never moved very much. The army has been able to wage war by relying in large measure on the guard in the reserves the call up of the draft. One is to commitments to the engagements and the other is for about 50 years now the army has been able to define the terms of service under which the service in the army, in vietnam those terms of service were much different. Draftees made up about 60 of the folks entering the army to get them here. They came in on two years of service. It would prove politically and otherwise very difficult to do. Typically it was twoyear inductees. Today we had no one entering the army. Minimum services two years less training. We have a volunteer army to Young Americans to enter training four, five, and six years of service. Half of our folks are coming in on 3 years. Probably 20 or 30 on 4, another 20 on 5 and the remainder on six you are lismans. We paid bonuses. Combat folks tend to be on shorter terms and specialists on longer terms. 50 years of doing that. If you have to bring in people for twoyear terms of service think of what you can do in terms of preparing them for war training, organizing them into Army Formations and having those organized and trained as units. It will be very limited. Terms of service we have today we configure the army to fight at levels of operation that were not thought of in vietnam. Night vision gear was just coming in. Nighttime operations were not the norm. Today the army said i would prefer an operating environment is one where we have the advantage against many of our enemies in the night is the preferred area of operation. To do that takes a great deal of training and collaboration across teams. While that requires certain inducements. The yellow line is in dollar terms, 20 19. What was soldier pay in 1969 timeframe and what is soldier pay today . Its just a private, right . And two years of service. You can see its twice what it was then. And if you look at the others, the orange bars in the gray bars theyve really grown. Those are some of the things youve heard about, qualityof life things. A measure was discussed, soldiers pretty much have weekends unless we are trained. That is not a dollar, that is value. Thats the business of the barracks. Almost every measure measure you can think of, the life of a soldier today is different from that of 1969 who had been drafted. The reason is because we have to compete for labor. These are Young Americans, they came in, they are expected to have a car, a license, and the wherewithal to participate in the american dream. Men were getting married very young. In those days you need a permission. When i came into the army my wife was on my efficiency report. Today no one would dream of such a thing so not only were you drafted but it was always your spouse and was expected to do a whole bunch of other things. So you can see quite a contrast between a draft army and a volunteer army. With regard to living quarters, soldiers of the vietnam area but have seen structures in the upper right. A lot left over from world war ii. There were facilities with bunkbeds, gain latrines, gang showers, probably didnt have stalls in the toilets. And of course, they were not gender integrated either. The lower left theres a sample of what you would find for single soldier quarters. The barracks are divided. Typically its a plus to structure. Twobedrooms and two common spaces. To soldiers will each have their own private living quarters and they will share a kitchen and bathroom. They can do quite a bit in that space in terms of customizing it to their likings. In addition there will be parking nearby. If they are deployed the army will ensure that their cars are protect did and stored protected and stored. When they get back they can go to a worldclass fitness facility, dining facilities, recreation facilities, and great deal of effort made to improve quality of life for soldiers. You can kind of reflect on thinking about the text that was put on young people and particularly if it was placed on only five or 10 of young people and how inequitable that would be. So not only pay but all the at all these other things the army does to provide a high quality of life that most americans would think is reasonable coming from the civilian world. Turning again to terms of service, if you look across the horizontal access, maybe vietnam is toward the left and the northsouth axis has changed. The rate of change. I would argue and many others have, that the top line there, the orange one is the world in which we lived here since the 1960s. The rate of change is accelerating but if you think back to the 60s how different was this year than last year . How difference was 5 to 10 years into the future from 5 to 10 years in the past . You think of it today and the rate of change that we are participating in today i would argue is much different and therefore the curve is linear. Its exponential, and changes changing at an increasing rate. Thats the world in which the army believes it has to operate in the world in which we think our soldiers have to operate. That affects the structure in the way that we think about enlistments versus a draft. Your world is being drug along by a bunch of things. Technology society and the business society. You use to we use to lead in computing and dont anymore. You name it. We are outpaced by business and outpaced by society and the ways to put that to work, and of course the next technology coming online. Our enemies live in this world as well. The enemies you heard discussed here before, our new National Security struck strategy and Defense Strategy focus on terrorism but preparing for major combat operations competitors and perhaps a picture in korea as well. The secretary of defense has put a name on one of them and particularly and that name is china china china. One of these has purchasing with our economy. If you look at what a big mac costs in china versus america and convert that to dollars into gdp, china is about 30 with the United States. The United States has not been at war with a country that had gdp parity probably since maybe the civil war timeframe. The army has to contemplate that. Resources are quite important to us. Budgets are important to us. And making good use of resources that we have. When we go to war if we ever did, confronting these is an existential affair. Vietnam was not an existential affair. That very much shapes our thinking which is called multi domain operations. And vietnam soldiers were preparing for things like war on land sea and air. Now that the army is bringing back artillery they can shoot 100,000 miles and with the idea it can shoot and sink ships you can probably imagine where we are thinking of doing that. We are looking at cyberspace all at the same time. In an environment in which our young folks equipped with with hightech kits may be denied satellite communications, networks may be jammed, may be infected with malware that screws up data and causes us to see things that dont exist, thats a world where we are preparing young folks to fight. A very complex affair. Day and night operations. 72 hours would not be unusual to be awake with catnaps. Very tough. A great deal goes on behind the scenes when you are thinking about that. The kid as a soldier in 1969 are there on the left. The rest of it was there. A kind of gives you a sense of what we spent as well. The survival rate was not terrific, about 62 . In this war you can see in the most recent conflict you can see the survival rate due in large part to the kit that we provided. When you can draft labor and it is free, perhaps you are thinking about that differently when you have to pay for it and develop and keep it. What we provide soldiers is much different than when they were was free to the army. We spent probably 20,000 on that. Ballistic eye protection, body armor thats much higher survival, sophisticated helmets , uniforms and in the nottoo distant future skeletons and something to take off of the burden to reduce wear and tear on their body. All of that is what a soldier looks like today in 2019 and of course that today could a man or a woman. 24 of our cadets at west point today are women and in 1969 it was zero. Equipping an army for women and men in 1969 was about 11 africanamerican. Today that number is about doubled. 1969 i could find cannot find statistics on what percent were hispanic or asian. In my world if you dont measure it probably didnt matter. I can tell you that caucasian is only 60 of the army because we measure everything we could think of. It all matters because it all touches a human that we care about in very profound ways. In order to get into the Army World War ii, there were some things they were worried about because healthcare during the Great Depression wasnt amazing. In terms of cognitive ability you had to follow standard words in common english. Today and much different situation. We are worried about the cognitive domain, the moral and ethical domain and the physical domain. You can imagine bearing up under that load, the work cycle. There at night, 72 hours. The load that is put on them that can be pretty important. So today while there were scores back in the draft era, it was not huge in terms of do i get into the army or not . It was like what am i going to do when i get to the army . Its important if you want to come in the army, what is that score . For us, 60 have to be above average with the balance falling in the next standard deviation. Only 2 can get into the army today. A High School Graduate with more and more being some college. Some college in these cognitive abilities have a great deal to do with what we expect the army to do today. Think about what that would look like if we were asked to have a draft. 60 of folks have to be above average intelligence. Would we draft people lower . It brings up questions and you might say will sure you do but then why do we demand 60 above average . Because of the equivalent, the formations and other expectations that we have for them. The equipment is very demanding. Greg can tell you, he has been there more recently than i. It looks like a galaxy phone which you can text. You can communicate through a network on the battlefield of fm communication and wifi if its still there. Can bring intelligence there very quickly and so that presents a lot of cognitive demands on a soldier. The physical just staying awake and an operating environment in addition to carrying those loads, and the moral ethical component. Likely a lot of independent operations so understanding the rules of warfare, engagement, and adhering to those things. You dont see a lot of the stories. Its very unusual. Are social expectation is that they will not do that. The vietnam area era. The deal with indiscipline but at low rates. If you cant behave you cant be in the army. You cant get in if youve misbehaved and if you do and youve misbehaved, you cant say. So this discipline question i would say my workdays the last three months, i dont think ive seen any issues come across my desk regarding desertions or any significant disciplines. It usually shows up on promotion boards and you dont get promoted and ultimately leave the army. Turning again to the business of how one fights, vietnam was very much an individual placement operation. The flags went to vietnam and by and large they stayed but the humans came and went. If youve got draftees on two year terms of service some amount of time will be required to bring them on board, transport them, get them integrated, and get them into fight. By the time youve done all of that you probably have less than one year left to demobilize them and be able to integrate into society. That had a place in world war ii, world war i, and vietnam. They were organized much differently given the complexity of organizations and operations. We bring folks in, we get them trained, we identify units that will be getting ready to rip deploy, and then sergeants at lower levels and finally troops. Once we are together and have a chance to practice drills together, demonstrate the mini certification test. Then they are ready to deploy and they will get deployed typically eight months to one year. Much different approach. Think about doing that with the draft. It would be very tough. So, you dont see this on evening news because soldiers all look alike because they were these things called uniforms. If you can see the patches, you would see there has been a lot of rotations and soldiers going abroad that came out of the reserve and were not necessarily active army. If you saw an active army within that division there were a lot of guards and reservists. About 180,000 soldiers involved in places that a draft army never dreamt of going to deal with things that we did not envision back when there was a draft whether its ebola in africa or book around in sub Saharan Africa no harm,. Lots of things going on that require skill sets, mindsets this gives you a little bit different picture of that. These are places that are National Guard units in the preeminent presence. We have country affiliations between guard units and host nation armies. That is not something that anyone envisioned but is very standard for us. As a first time drafter. They are operationalized with the rest of the army called on when needed which is pretty much constantly. Another aspect you would not have seen that is now being integrated into our units is what is circled in red. Physical therapists. Folks who can deal with keeping soldiers fit. Registered dietitians. Occupational therapists. Soldiers get a lot of injuries through contact with hard objects in these folks help them recover those. Strength coaches. All of these resources are now flowing into the army. Very much in the vein of soldiers and an athlete as well as a soldier. You will see it when you look at their uniforms. Kneepads and elbow pads. Im sure elbows and knees got hurt plenty and those things are cheap, but it was a draft army. Now its an army that america owns and has to pay for, and its an expensive army. We want our soldiers protected in any way we can think of. When i did get them Occupational Therapy when they carried a heavy load, the pt is there to help them and as fit as they can be, strength coach. Jumping jacks are gone, and all of the leg lifts and exercises that are cheap but lousy argon. We have a whole variety of a different way of assessing fitness and the categories are called gold black and gray. They are aligned with occupations. They are genderneutral so if you are going to be in the infantry when you are a woman, and i did say infantry and women, you are in the black group. There are things you have to be able to do. If you cant do them you have to be in the infantry. If you are going to be in the armor, but grew. If you are going to be a cyber person maybe you are in the gold or gray. Very different approach. I would argue that the volunteer army is one in which it will be difficult to go back and direction and quite frankly it will be one in which you say what if we deplete the volunteer army . If we did get into major combat operations and had to call on mobilization, we do have plans for drafts and complete national mobilization. Where would the equipment come from . We dont have a whole lot of equipment laying around to build a cyber capable unit, a living unit for the helicopter battalion. Maybe there will be enough time to train and organize them in before you lose sleep over that the enemies youre going to engage if they will have a hope against us have to fight in the same way that we fight unless its unconventional like afghanistan. They can fight the way they want but those typically are not going to be existential threats. Its major combat operations that are those kinds of threats. The chinas, the russians, those are probably the ones in really its the china china china one. With those extras if those existential threats emerge they cant come at us with something that isnt matched to what we can do and then they have to think about how they are organized. You are seeing china shrink dramatically to equip them in ways that are competitive so i would suggest that while mobilization and draft are still in the books, the combat that we might see would not lend itself to that and likely are enemies would face the same challenges that we face if we get to that point. What are we doing to prepare for the next thing . That curves kept curving up. The technology curve. With regard to the volunteer army the next thing is to leverage what is best about it and thats america. America we think has a resource which did not surprise you but america is a set of ideas. Dignity equality freedom, these kinds of ideas. The army doesnt share those ideas. They share other ideas with people weve defeated and when you leverage america the way the army intends to do it is the revolution that i would argue now is on par with what we saw between 79 and 83 and called Talent Management. The effort is in the vein of the right person right place right time. That could be that they are assigned to you. They could be visiting you as a temporary duty assignment or it can be virtual. You contact them through virtual means to request their help. You have a tough problem in cyber security. You dont have to on the solution, just be able to access it. If i want to stay somewhere nice i can just do air bnb. This is the same approach. If we really know our soldiers and what they can do, if weve got a way of figuring that out we can reach out and touch them and leverage their expertise and bring it an important way in an important time. We dont think our armies can do this because culturally when you are observing your population constantly and forbidding them access to health care or transportation based on social score which is computed based on watching them in the streets of shanghai or beijing through various to ologies, they are not likely to want to share a lot more about what they are up to, what they know, where theyve been, what vacations they have and what friends they have a broad. And army and a country that are very accustomed to technologies where people show a whole lot to the extent that it purports itself with wholesome use ill be done in five minutes i will just really a story related to me by folks back at west point. I know it to be true. A gentleman, i think he was the Personnel Officer for Army Special Forces command before bin laden was taken down came up to west point and was working on the prototype. Folks that he was just looking at it. Osama bin laden is somewhere at the bottom of the ocean and the gentleman is now assigned to the command point. He said why havent this been fielded . Why are they using the Talent Management system . Why do you care . He said i didnt come up to perus the thing i came up looking for a human. We needed someone who could get into that area unobserved and not with a lot of vicks suspicion. They needed to have some facility with the language, because the helicopters came in. We were worried about them on the inside calling out for help and we needed to know that to know if we had to send some other folks and. At a certain point we needed to take the tower out because of the helicopters and at the end we needed them to get out of there. They found that fellow, the west point engineer. So that level of detail, imagine trying to know that in the vietnam era. The thought of doing it wasnt there, the depth of the relationship between the army and soldiers that education as well. A lot of words, i conclude by saying that the vietnam e. R. A. Folks met their nations call. They served as a contrast, and they did so with dignity. With the draft e. R. A. , todays a much different time. Perhaps it calls more for volunteer army than a draft army. It would be difficult to reverse those engines given all the challenges that are embedded in the battlefield today. Certainly it would be one in my mind which would be very inoperable if we were delivering on a small part of our population. You can see the investment has taken to equal that task. And the tax on 5 to 10 in 1969. Versus what it takes to run a volunteer army today. Its probably best if we pay our young people. We bring in volunteers and we do our best to send them back to you again whole. Thank you. I believe we have a 10 minutes . What is your recruiting target percentage . How close are we to meeting it. And have you considered nco grades . Those are great questions. If i understand the first question. Our target for High School Graduates is what we call category one. No less than 90 . 90 or better have to be High School Graduates. I would tell you the part of the reason i am in town is that i was over it Fort Leavenworth yesterday working on the management topic with the commander over there. I had the opportunity to tour the university that the army has put in there. I havent been here since the 90s. Army university is amazing. It is focused on our sergeants. The goal is wallace soldiers in the army that we would be able to progress very far, definitely an associates degree. Perhaps all the way to a bachelors degree. And that those credits transferred to major state universities. The big focus on continuing education for soldiers and sergeants in that group. The armys educational institutions except for west pointe are in the university. West pointe is doing what it has done for 200 years. This bit about high school is becoming necessary. We are looking at some colleges as we bring in College Graduates for specific areas of soldiers and sergeants. Some are in the area of cyber, summering intelligence, communication, and other technical fields. In summer and combat arms. Infantry. Because educations become so expensive we have a lot of programs that help in loan repayment. Things like that. That was the first question. Ive lost track of the second . What was the second . Ngos . The cyber core which is the upper tier of our expertise a large number of soldiers, it is really forcing us to think hard i visited with the cyber command. A very fine gentleman. They are relying on a Traditional Army environment. You have a lot of soldiers, and not too many cheese. And as you go work your way up, we are not a big on lateral entry. You can come in as a chief of staff in the army. You are experienced, a lot of expertise. Cyber is inverted. The longer youve been in cyber but not doing the cyber the expertise is atrophying. So the upper ranks are officers were there was no cyber. Thinking through rank and expertise and authority. Its a bit of a conundrum for us right now. Theyre working on those things that will go into robotics and Artificial Intelligence and hyper velocity weapons and all these sorts of things where the expertise is evolving very quickly. It is not connected to time in service and how much experience i had. Rank is becoming something which might sound a little scary. It has its utility but its not the same as it was. In the draft army that would be a big problem. In army professionals, i dont think it will be a big problem. It will be manageable in terms of people who outrank because they have superior expertise and provide advice. When the final decision is made, i will make it and go forward. Its a very collaborative. Not like what you see the movies where people are saluting each other all day and the headman is a barking orders. I seek gregs advice on almost anything i do. And the other people that i work with i seek their advice. Theyre very capable people. Great insight, as you can imagine in the field even more so. Some of the 16 year enlistees that are at 40,000 for enlistment options. Cyber guys just for being cyber earned 1000 per month extra. When you look at those outside options is not a lot. If people think about how they can work in the guard, and be parttime army. Somebody touched on this in the panel, parttime army. We will train them up in one of the key things about the guard and reserves. As we retain people, it hurts the guard and reserve. Theres a normal flow of people. We get them in the army, train them, they get them to their high level and then they go to the guard as parttime soldiers and reserve as parttime soldiers. In the cyber unit its a very complex area. They will go there and then they could work where there services are being offered back to the army and corporations. Keeping their skills sharp. We need and we can call back. In some cases they go into Law Enforcement authority. Working for a governor instead of a present. A very different approach than what you wouldve seen in 1969. That approach was reasonable for that time, but getting a little threadbare. And we hope that this one is appropriate for this time. Any other questions . I was wondering if you could add to your portrait, the role of contractors in the military think about Going Forward . Contractors are important to us. I have many contract folks that i work with within the pentagon. Most of the headquarters we try to have soldiers in the field. Soldiers are expensive. They are doing jobs and we are careful about how many people do that. Greg is in the pentagon with me. He will go back into the field and be a brigade commander. People dont typically come in uniform and stay long. The green suit army, soon to be the brown suit army. They bring key expertise from the field army, but many of them go into the contracting world when they retire. We can still access that expertise that we developed and in they come back as a contractor, or the come back on reserve. In terms of war fighting, i think the army by a large seas that is a uniformed enterprise. During the will gulf war you saw blackwater in triple canopy in these organizations. They were often brought in to protect other contractors overrunning logistic operations. Protecting their base areas, i think some of the concern by america that we were doing that. And it was not unfounded. The rules of engagement, representing our country, bound by our expectations. Drones youll probably find contractors today were they may take a drone during a routine part of a flight. When any engagement of Hostile Force is followed, you will see it hand off to somebody in uniform. Its a sort of a hybrid there. As robots become a bigger part of the battlefield, you will see robots first and logistics, running them remotely by contractors if they are not a lethal thing. Like a truck. Its probably reasonable to expect that to happen. If they are lethal its a big question mark. And if they are they will be under the control of uniformed people. First of all are you training g5 . You got me on that one. Im not that smart, it was supposed to be the new network . I talking about the phones and all that . It will just become a backbone of what we do. Itll be pretty transparent to our soldiers whether there on them g4 or g5. Communication is a vital in this world. And technology would probably give you a better answer. There is a reason the president does what he does and location is vital in knowing our communications. Our devices dont have little gizmos ascend in the back to the mothership somewhere else. Its important for us. As you can imagine. Thank you. Thank you for coming today. We appreciate it. I was wondering if you could respond to the proposition and we can set the specialty aside like a cyber. And that is that all volunteer force is still a drafted army . We are not recruiting but we are drafting from the lower social economic population. 40 of that forces from households that earn 50,000 per year or last less . 60 when you go to 50 of men in the minority. Does it complicate the narrative of a willingness . The aspect of the all volunteer force that youre not competing with the labor market . The your drafting those that cannot compete in the labor market . Unemployment is somewhere around 3 today. Its not that there arent opportunities for americans in the economy. As a dad who has two sons in the army, a son and a daughter in the army, and a son in the coast guard. They have faced a lot of opportunities, and they volunteered. In my sons case, since enlisting i would say the army has done a tremendous job to benefit him and prepare him for life. In terms of Young Americans. I would not deny them the opportunities that only Americans Army can afford. You heard my resume. I never expected to go to harvard, i never expected to get a phd. The army values education. It is a great pathway to get there. There are a large number of dangerous jobs in this country. The army doesnt all just entailed danger but great reward. There are many applications where people are getting hurt, the construction industry, the maritime industry, these are important jobs that need to be done as well. Being clear about what the jobs ups and downs are are important. The army is transparent, and even if it wasnt, there is no lack of information about the army available to adults. The game that was talked about in the beginning, part of the role of that was to be very transparent. The army wants people that want to be in the army. Who know the challenges and benefits of being in the army. We have all seen that a scene from full metal jacket. This scene where the soldier i think it was a marine shoots his drill sergeant. Kids a scene that. If you try that in todays army youre going go to jail, and thats a boring experience. You can get hurt you dont get to have replay. You tree your comrades as a medic. We want to show people what they are getting into. Its a very expensive enterprise for the United States. And we dont want buyers remorse. Someone going back and saying thats not what i expected. We want them to go back to america and tell their family, their peers that it was what i thought it would be. There were good days and lousy days there was some great food and lousy food. It i was cold, i was hot, and life is like that. Like any other veteran outside of my war stories. Marchitelli the boring days. Im just going give you the colorful days. Nobody wants to listen to my boring stories. At the end of the day i have 30 years worth of stories. A lot of our veterans have 20 30 years worth of stories. I would reflect on one thing. The group most likely to join the army or any other services are children of military. I cant think of a group that knows more about the military thing kids who have been in the military. Essentially traveling the world with their parents when mom and dad comes home at the end of the day and says this is what happened today. Theyve heard that. And then they decide to join. My kids heard me come home and complain, they heard me come home and celebrate. They were there when i was promoted. My wife was there when i was promoted, they saw the investments and the outcomes. They made their own choices. And that they chose to be in the military in america. The most likely group to join the military are children of the military. To some degree its a family business. Like medicine, entertainment, and others. They know how to approach it. I would argue that that group who knows best would not be most likely to join. They would seem to be less likely. Not to the degree that they are joining. That is my personal set of beliefs. I think challenging the army is a good thing because it makes us a better. Looking at where we recruit successfully. That certainly is a good thing. You can imagine when we go after direct deployment doctors and communication experts, cyber. The armies 20 something combat arms, and the rest is support. Which is pretty complex. And even combat arms today is getting very complex. I thank you for your question. Give me a chance to pontificate for a moment. Thank you. Following up on the last question. If you remove children from military families. What is the divide in the socioeconomic market . The market that we are in heavily is right after High School Graduation obviously. The laws tell us that dont go below this line. You can go above that line, but then you start to get into the area of age. If it doesnt matter, theres fitness stuff. Im not probably a good candidate anymore. Probably in the 8026 ranges where we are the thickest. Most parents are going to say to the kid i want to go to college. If they go straight to college and they dont join the military, its tougher to communicate with them. You fish where there are more fish, and that is high school, High School Graduation, Community Colleges. The folks that go to Community Colleges typically are coming from families where there is a financial resource constraint. More than families that go to the four college. If we are in that area we are going to see people that are not at the top of the income structure. But at the same rate where we see people in the middle the income structure. 50,000 60,000 per year in household income. Its not terribly low in this country. Its right in the middle of the pack. When you go to high school and youre not directly college bound. They may be looking for resources for college. And we offer those. They may be looking for something else. My son went straight into the coast guard. He was looking to do rescue and National Security. Those kind of things. And then he wanted to go to college. My family at that point we were not the super rich. We do skew to middle and lower class. Other services may skew different. But when you come out itll be in the other direction. And you will have opportunities he would not of had if the army had been there is an opportunity. I dont know about other outfits that are philanthropic layout there repaying the Student Loan Debt and Offering College experiences. And of course the training we offer is without peer in many areas. I was with the jet engine mechanics that fix our helicopters at fort eustis. What a great occupation. High demand. You dont go to college to be a helicopter pilot. You can come right out of high school. Come into the army and fly a 20 milliondollar aircraft. We are the only service where you can do that. We have more aircraft than anywhere else put together. It depends on what you want. Again, its not for everybody. We wanted to be a good match. Obviously contribute back to america when these folks come back to a civil life. Thank you very much for your time. Heres a look at our prime time schedule. Starting at 9 52 pm eastern. A debate on gun rights and the right to bear arms. At 8 30 pm. Its a book tv with authors and books on the supreme court. And at 8 pm on cspan the 3. Its American History tv with the life and career of president richard nixon. Live coverage of the 2020 president ial candidates at the iowa state fair. Thursday 1 45 pm eastern. American history tv begins with u. S. Soldier morale. Taking place at the university of kansas. I was wondering if you could set the stage a little bit. We call this manpower morale. It suggests that by titling it manpower morale that is