Opportunity to present to you the overview of the armys 2018 budget request. More importantly, i will tell you i am even more more so pleao be able to continue to serve our great country in uniform, as an army soldier. So, thats always something that inspires me. Ill take a few minutes here in the process of providing an overview of what the army is doing today. Ill sketch out the current operating environment, what our fiscal posture has looked like over the last five to six years and how this request supports the administrations and the Army Leaderships priorities. And then of course ill spend some time to provide a biapproach ration review of some of the details of the armys request. We are increasingly more and more active in worldwide operations across the globe. I would offer to you that the current pictorial on the slide before you not only represents some of the Current Operations where army forces are heavily engaged, but it should remind us all of the velocity of instability across the world and how this same pictorial will continue to change in the years to come. This observation alone makes it increasingly clear that the ability to simultaneously conduct Decisive Action, major combat operations while maintaining our counterinsurgency for the current fight represent the most demanding challenge that the army faces. Properly resourced and trained a ready army can perform successfully across this full spectrum of operations, but it must also continue to advance its capacity and capabilities for tomorrows conflicts. Today, Ground Forces remain the most globally committed u. S. Military force with more than 180,000 u. S. Army soldiers from the active component, the National Guard and the reserve committed to combatant command missions in over 140 countries worldwide. Americas soldiers directly contribute to our nations efforts to defeat isis, support governance in afghanistan and deter conflict throughout europe, asia and the middle east. This steady demand for trained and ready army units provides our nation with the ability to defeat adversaries, assure our allies and deter potential aggressors. While this chart depicts Current Operations where Americas Army is engaged, the next fight could represent an existential strategic challenge posed by peer powers. Some with nuclear capabilities, advanced technologies and large and more sophisticated militaries. While it is difficult to define with precision, the character of future warfare, its broad outlines can be anticipated. We should plan on all domains of warfare being contested. A technologically sophisticate and numerically superior enemy that initially possesses positional advantage. These anticipated attributes of future warfare demand a continued investment not only in current competencies but the future capacity and capabilities in order to protect Americas National security interests both today and tomorrow. Conducting Current Operations sustaining front readiness and making progress towards a more modern, cape i believe and lethal future army will require consistent funding year to year. The armys fy 18 requests takes important steps to improve readiness and close vulnerability gaps a future force ready to face the changing threats of tomorrow. Its valuable to start by looking at the armys budget over time. And providing a little commentary that may inform your views of the armys current funding request. As you can see clearly from the charts the armys base budget has been on the decline since 2012 while inflation during the same time period is averaged between 1 and 2 1 2 . The recently enacted 2017 defense appropriation act and fy18 request has an up kline and starts to arrest the armys readiness decline and sets the conditions for improving the current and future readiness of the force. The base budget represented on this chart and as you know is meant to man, train and equip the nations army has been significantly impacted by this budget control act. Fortunately the army has been able to maintain with the flexibility provided through two bipartisan budget agreements and the funding provided by our government. The market decrease in our base funding level over the past few years had forced the army to mortgage longterm investments for the benefit of nearterm readiness. Like wise, in oco not fully represented on this chart, as large Contingency Operations have become smaller, the arms budget has been reduced consistent with the requirements of the Contingency Operations we are supporting. As is clearly portrayed on this chart, the funding levels of the recently enacted 17 budget and 18 base request are consistent with the administrations goals of the future. With this fy 18 president s budget submission the following are some of the main highlights of our request first and foremost, the budget has been formulated to provide the combatant commands with the best trained and ready land forces that we can generate. To do that, we must fully fund the counterterrorism and counterinsurgency necessary for the current fight while also building Decisive Action capabilities for potential major combat operations consistent with the threats that some near pure nation states may pose. That requires the army to increase its global responsiveness capabilities and support regional engagements and Partnership Activities with our allies. The budget request further sustains a force of 1 million and 18,000 soldiers across the total army with realistic and specialized training and the best maintained equipment we can provide. We were able to focus some of our resources on the armys instillations and infrastructure needs to better support the operations and training of the force. With this budget, we are able to sustain the armys modernization programs and invest in programs to advance soldier and technological overmatch capabilities. We do all this while seeking to achieve the highest levels of accountability and stewardship to maximize the purchasing power of the armys budget. This budget and those that follow should provide the army the necessary resources to conduct Current Operations and improve current readiness and make progress towards a more modern, capable and lethal future army. Provided predictable and consistent funding is available in a timely manner and at a funding level commensurate with current and future demands on the force. The topical discussion that follows highlights both the priorities we use to formulate the budget and the components of this 2018 budget request to achief Senior Leader priorities and objectives to achieve the u. S. Armys ultimate goal of remaining the best led, equipped and most ready ground force in the world. The armys base budget request is 137. 2 billion and increase of almost 7 billion other the fy 17 enacted amount for the base. As you should observe with that margin of growth, there are notable increases in military pay, o m or operations and maintenance and infrastructure to support the larger end strength. This slide represents funding requirements for all three components of the army. The regular army, the National Guard and the army of reserve. And as a breakout in the aggregate across the major defense appropriations. Well talk about each appropriation in more detail and subsequent slides, however, i take this opportunity to point out at the aggregate level where much of the growth is represented. The 2017 National Defense authorization act reversed the previously planned in strength decline and authorized a total army in strength of 1 million 18,000 soldiers. A much i appreciated start that they have fully manned operation. The increase in the fy 18 request goes to covering the readiness requirements of the growth, both military pay and funding for training the force. Additionally, the army was able to leverage the growth to address reoccurring readiness short falls primarily in the o m funded operations in the areas of training and infrastructure. Only a small portion of the growth remained to apply to our future modernization accounts. I will walk you through the details in subsequent discussions. So ill start with our mail pers account. This is a clear picture of the instrength and how they remain stable. Many of you are aware that the u. S. Army instrength declined markedly in the past three years. The army accordingly had to reduce its four structures to avoid building a hollow army with the recently authorized increase to 1 million 18,000 level, the army has been able to increase personnel readiness, fill some holes in its formations and source some of the necessary structure changes. The fy 18 budget request maintains this increased instrength. The army will achieve this increase through enlisted officer recessions and attention. Funding associated with these necessary retention efforts is represented on the following slide. Military personnel for the largest portion of the armys base budget. Our request funds a multicomponent army of just over 1 million soldiers and covers pay, allowances, recruiting and retention incentives and man days for some training in the reserve components. Given our initial in strength ramp in fy 17 and subsequent reversal in full sustainment in 18 of the 1 million 18,000 force load, you can see that our request is a full 2. 8 billion higher than the fy 17 enacted amount. Both the armys increased strength and rate increases in our soldiers basic pay, Housing Allowance and subsistence account for this growth. I will now transition to the armys operations and maintenance appropriations. As i mentioned earlier, this is one area where we are requesting growth from the current years budget. Starting with the regular army, with 2018 budget request totals 38. 9 billion and seeks to resource a more balanced readiness across the force. This readiness is more than being prepared for current day Contingency Operations but includes readiness for Decisive Action missions with the capability to conduct major combat operations. This fuller spectrum of readiness is reflected in the armys 19 combat Training Center rotations for which we are seeking funding. These rotations are focussed on Decisive Action training for both regular army and reserve components. The armys request also provides for critical funding for regional engagement activities with our al lice and Strategic Partners for Training Missions such as pacific pathways of which some of you are familiar with. Many request will recover the sustainment of the armys equipment and represents a small increase in maintenance to help bring our equipment to a greater level of repair and by enhancing army stocks to improve global responsive capabilities. This request strongly supports base Operations Support requirements on the armys 74 major installations. Funding it at a 98 at 98 of the critical requirement. Fortunately we were also able to increase facility sustainment funding from 67 of the critical requirement of last year to 75 for this year. These funding levels are consistent across all three army components. While they represent an improvement over recent years we still assume risk across our instillations as a large amount of backlog maintenance still exist across the force. The armys 2018 budget request supports a 10. 2 billion dollar o m requirement for the army National Guard and the u. S. Army reserve. For the army National Guard, its 2018 o m request is also not only higher than its 2017 funding level, consistent with the regular army it seeks to restore readiness and base Operations Support as well as provide funding to continue supporting family and soldier programs that promote the well being of the armys most valuable asset, our people. For the u. S. Army reserve, their 2. 9 billion o m budget request supports brigades, its three instillations over 840 reserve centers and the professional education and specialized skills training for its 199,000 soldiers. Having spent a few minutes discussing army nearterm readiness and manning the force, lets now transition to army modernization. The armys fy 18 research, development and acquisition budget request of 26. 8 billion represents an increase of 600 million from the fy 17 enacted level. Thats an enacted level that includes a pretty sizable up tick because of the amendment that was recently included in the fy 17 appropriation act. However, i would say that the majority of this increase is more so in Research Development, testing and evaluation than it is in the procurement accounts as youll see. This budget request represents the modernization priorities we must pursue in order to advance Material Solutions and enable the army to address a broader range of potential threats. This request prioritizes the requirements necessary to deter and if required defeat peer adversaries. The army is accepting risk in developing of new capabilities in order to prioritize incremental upgrades of our ground and air systems so that with can put in the hands of our soldiers in the near term a greater and more lethal capability. In the upper right hand quadrant of the chart, youll see a list of the armys top ten modern prioritization priorities. Im going to break script here. This is a really important list here as i go through the remainder of this briefing youre going to see me kind of go in order here based upon these top ten priorities, but these are really important as you try to understand how we made some choices across our modernization portfolios. These were developed as a result of the strategic portfolio Analysis Review process to prioritize limited modernization funding in order to balance nearterm readiness requirements against longterm force development. We call this the spar. The spar process allows army leaders to review and address our most critical capability gaps in order to make informed decisions. In the next two charts, i will highlight how our budget requests supports these priorities. The lower right pie chart shows the armys 11th largest equipment portfolios. What i would ask you to take away from this is that the army requires a broad comprehensive set of the modernization efforts in order to successfully execute the diverse missions, the Combatant Commanders require. So let me transition to the procurement portion of our Research Development and acquisition or modernization portfolios. Our fy 18 request of 17. 4 billion is consistent with what we saw in 18, if not just slightly below that or 17, excuse me. As mentioned in the previous slide, in this budget request, the army has focussed its modernization efforts within the ten priority areas. These priors will ensure we allocate resources to sustain and upgrade the most important weapon systems, ammunitions and other critical equipment our units require for a near pure fight. I will now highlight i will now provide highlights for these ten priorities. Starting with air and Missile Defense. The air and Missile Defense and the long range fire represents the armys most urgent and pressing capability needs. Given the possibility of confronting a force but substantial antiaccess, the army needs to advance its short range air defense and long range fire capabilities. This budget request includes funding for several critical air and Missile Defense systems to include procurement and instillation of 131 patriot modification kits. And interim modernization plan. In the area of longrange fires to improve our ability to respond effectively to surface to surface fires for cannon and rocket artillery and missiles this budget request includes funding for three of the armys most critical fire system. The Service Life Extension of 121 expired missiles adding another ten years of service life to them. The procurement of 6,000 guided multiple launch rocket systems and the continued lowRate Initial Production of 93 Patriot Missile segment enhancements. The budget accounts for both the armys operational and training munitions requirements. Consistent with the efforts to increase our inventory of munitions in 2017, the 2018 request will help ensure the cape ability. Three years to highlight include the increased production of 88,000 hydro rockets. 480 rounds of war reserve inventory replenishment for the excalibur and modernization of ammunition Industrial Facilities to improve munition production, place depleted stocks and create capacity for increased future demand. For example the armys pursuing a multiyear effort to u improve the hol ston plant in tennessee to benefit all of the armed services. In the area of mobility, lethality and protection of our maneuver formations the army has developed a combat vehicle modernization strategy for the abrams, striker, bradley, armored multipurpose vehicle and the hol lit zer fleets. This includes upgrades to bradley and abrams and procurement 42 low Rate Initial Production amp fees. Initially for the pal let and integrated management system, full rate production of 59 sets comprised of the self propelled and tracked ammunition carrier. The request procures active protective systems for the abram tank for instillation of vehicles within or Armored Brigade Combat Team in europe. On todays battlefield, the army requires a greater ability to conduct Electronic Warfare. Against this near pure adversaries and requires Electronic Warfare capab