[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 116-53]
DIVERSITY IN RECRUITING AND
RETENTION: INCREASING DIVERSITY IN
THE MILITARY--WHAT THE MILITARY SERVICES ARE DOING
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY PERSONNEL
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
DECEMBER 10, 2019
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
___________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
41-929 WASHINGTON : 2021
SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY PERSONNEL
JACKIE SPEIER, California, Chairwoman
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California TRENT KELLY, Mississippi
RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana
GILBERT RAY CISNEROS, Jr., LIZ CHENEY, Wyoming
California, Vice Chair PAUL MITCHELL, Michigan
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas JACK BERGMAN, Michigan
DEBRA A. HAALAND, New Mexico MATT GAETZ, Florida
LORI TRAHAN, Massachusetts
ELAINE G. LURIA, Virginia
Craig Greene, Professional Staff Member
Dan Sennott, Counsel
Danielle Steitz, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Kelly, Hon. Trent, a Representative from Mississippi, Ranking
Member, Subcommittee on Military Personnel..................... 3
Speier, Hon. Jackie, a Representative from California,
Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Military Personnel................. 1
WITNESSES
Campos-Palma, Pam, Former U.S. Air Force Intelligence Analyst.... 24
Garrison, Bishop, Former U.S. Army Officer....................... 27
Kelly, Lt Gen Brian T., USAF, Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower,
Personnel and Services, United States Air Force................ 7
Nowell, VADM John B., Jr., USN, Chief of Naval Personnel, United
States Navy.................................................... 6
Rocco, LtGen Michael A., USMC, Deputy Commandant for Manpower and
Reserve Affairs, United States Marine Corps.................... 9
Seamands, LTG Thomas C., USA, Deputy Chief of Staff, G-1, United
States Army.................................................... 4
Williams, Kayla M., Former U.S. Army Linguist.................... 23
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Campos-Palma, Pam............................................ 94
Garrison, Bishop............................................. 103
Kelly, Lt Gen Brian T........................................ 63
Nowell, VADM John B., Jr..................................... 54
Rocco, LtGen Michael A....................................... 73
Seamands, LTG Thomas C....................................... 43
Speier, Hon. Jackie.......................................... 41
Williams, Kayla M............................................ 83
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
Ms. Speier................................................... 115
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Brown.................................................... 125
Ms. Speier................................................... 119
DIVERSITY IN RECRUITING AND RETENTION:
INCREASING DIVERSITY IN THE MILITARY--WHAT THE MILITARY SERVICES ARE
DOING
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Subcommittee on Military Personnel,
Washington, DC, Tuesday, December 10, 2019.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:34 p.m., in
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jackie Speier
(chairwoman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JACKIE SPEIER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
CALIFORNIA, CHAIRWOMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY PERSONNEL
Ms. Speier. Good afternoon, everyone. We are going to call
to order now the Military Personnel Subcommittee, and today we
are going to talk about diversity in recruiting and retention.
We are here to discuss what the services are doing to increase
diversity, which includes representation of women and people of
color.
We are stronger when our military represents and connects
to those it protects. One small ``warrior caste'' cannot bear
the burden of service alone. Our democracy is stronger when we
all understand the true cost of war waged on our behalf.
Diversity is also an asset. Minorities and women have
unique perspectives they bring to the fight and diverse teams
are more innovative and effective. We also need to take
advantage of all the talent at our disposal.
Promoting diversity is also about justice and safety. Women
and persons of color have always served in our military, even
though for the majority of our history military policies and
culture have been hostile to their presence.
Those groups are now serving in increasing numbers and we
need them more than ever. They deserve the opportunity to excel
unencumbered by biases and barriers and free from hate crimes
or sexual assaults that threaten their safety.
We have included retention in this hearing because across
every service, senior ranks are less diverse. Junior service
members are more likely to stay in the military and rise when
they can see and be monitored by leaders who look like them.
Today's first panel shows what can happen when the services
don't focus on diversity and retention. I don't doubt any of
your qualifications or commitments, but our military personnel
aren't all White men and our personnel chiefs shouldn't be
either. I realize that this is not always the case, but it
happens more often than not.
There are approximately 1.3 million Active Duty members in
the military; 83 percent are men and 16 percent are women; 17
percent are Black or African American; 16 percent are Hispanic
or Latino; 4.5 percent are Asian; and around 30,000 are
noncitizens; 70 percent are White.
Enlisted members are more diverse than officers, and the
percentages have all increased over the past decade, but it is
not enough.
I am interested to hear what each service is doing to
tackle these challenges. How are you using influencers such as
parents, coaches, and educators to recruit diverse populations?
What kind of public service campaigns have you launched? What
has worked and who has collaborated with you?
I also want to know how you are dealing with the ways
belonging to an underrepresented group can negatively influence
an individual's experience in the military and cause them to
end their service. Research shows us that challenges like
raising a family or dealing with inadequate healthcare
providers are harder for women, who are still
disproportionately expected to be primary caregivers. And
complaints by women and minorities are still taken less
seriously by doctors.
Underexamined cultural norms, practices, and legacies also
inhibit the success of women and people of color. Many notions
about what constitutes a good Marine, soldier, or warrior
simply reflect traits that happen to be held by predominant
groups in the service, such as physical prowess, rather than
those that actually correlate with success, such as empathetic
leadership.
In many cases, evaluating all service members by
traditional expectations isn't equality or fairness. It is
applying flawed criteria that reflect the skills of incumbent
groups to a dynamic population with other strengths.
I would like to hear how the services are grappling with
these complex issues, not just by creating policies that give
all service members equal opportunity to excel, but by
confronting these cultural issues head on at every level.
I also hope our second panel can help us understand, based
on their expertise in this field, activism in service member
and veteran communities, and experience on and departure from
Active Duty, how these policies look in the field and what else
the services should consider.
Finally, I would like both panels to tell us what Congress
can do. Whether it is nominations to the service academies or
setting policy, we can affect diversity in the military, and we
hope to partner with all of you in that effort.
I would now like to turn it over to my ranking member, Mr.
Kelly, for his opening comments.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Speier can be found in the
Appendix on page 41.]
STATEMENT OF HON. TRENT KELLY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
MISSISSIPPI, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY PERSONNEL
Mr. Kelly of Mississippi. Thank you, Chairwoman Speier. And
I wish to welcome both of our panels to today's hearing on
diversity in the military.
The strength of our military is our people and the strength
of people is our diversity. With rapidly evolving warfighting
and technology, our national defense depends on the military
services' ability to recruit and retain qualified individuals
with a wide array of skills necessary to keep pace with our
adversaries.
Given that only 29 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds are
eligible to serve in the military without a waiver, it is
essential that services do everything they can to increase the
recruiting pool.
After reading through the witness statements, it is evident
that the services have vastly improved their efforts to recruit
from a diverse population. For example, the makeup of the
services largely paces the racial and ethnic makeup of the
United States population.
In addition, the number of women in the military has
steadily increased as well. The chairwoman and I recently had
the privilege of meeting with female soldiers who were in
combat arm MOSs [military occupational specialties] at Joint
Base Lewis-McChord, and it is clear that the success of these
groundbreaking troops is inspiring other young women who may
not have otherwise thought about a military career at all.
Despite the significant efforts made by the services, there
are still areas for improvement. Specifically, the services
must redouble their efforts to improve diversity among the
officer corps. While women and minorities are represented in
larger numbers than ever before, the services must look for new
and innovative ways to improve recruiting and retention.
With the recent opening of combat MOSs to women, I am very
interested to hear from our witnesses today about how these
additional opportunities for female service members may impact
both recruiting in general, and in particular, officer
recruiting.
It is also important that the services continue to strive
for a diverse force in other areas. In addition to race and
ethnic diversity, the services must also consider geographic
diversity and diversity of experiences.
In an effort to meet the end strength goal, the services
often focus their recruiting efforts on the areas of the
country that produce the most recruits and the high schools
that have had the most success in the past. While this makes
sense from an efficiency standpoint, it often means that
certain parts of the country, particularly rural and inner-city
areas, are greatly underrepresented in the military.
I understand that the Army has recently increased its
efforts to recruit in areas that were historically overlooked.
I would like to hear from all the services about their efforts
to broaden the recruiting pool in this way.
In addition, diversity of experience is crucial as the
services continue to develop and employ new technology. Given
increased demands in the fields of cyber and technology, the
services may need to recruit individuals who are older and with
more private sector experience.
Recent reforms of DOPMA [Defense Officer Personnel
Management Act] have given the services greater flexibility in
this regard, and I look forward to hearing from the witnesses
how they intend to use these authorities.
Once again, I want to thank our witnesses for their many
years of service and for being here today.
And thank you. And I yield back.
Ms. Speier. I thank the gentleman.
I ask unanimous consent to allow Members not on the
subcommittee to participate in today's hearing and be allowed
to ask questions after all subcommittee members are been
recognized.
Mr. Kelly of Mississippi. Without objection.
Ms. Speier. Without objection, so ordered.
Now we welcome our first panel: Lieutenant General
Seamands, Deputy Chief of Staff, U.S. Army; Vice Admiral John
Nowell, U.S. Navy, Chief of Navy Personnel; Lieutenant General
Brian Kelly, Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower, U.S. Air
Force; Lieutenant General Michael Rocco, U.S. Marine Corps.
Let us ask that you summarize your testimony in 5 minutes
or less. Your written comments will be made part of the record.
And we look forward to hearing from you.
Lieutenant General Seamands, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF LTG THOMAS C. SEAMANDS, USA, DEPUTY CHIEF OF
STAFF, G-1, UNITED STATES ARMY
General Seamands. Madam Chairwoman Speier, Ranking Member
Kelly, distinguished members of the committee, I thank you for
the opportunity to appear before you on behalf of the women and
men of the United States Army. I have submitted a statement for
the record and would now would like to highlight some of the
points from that.
``People first, winning matters.'' With these words our
Chief of Staff set a clear azimuth for our Army and the way
ahead. America's Army stands prepared today to deploy, fight,
and win our Nation's wars as part of the joint force.
People are the starting point for all that we do. Today the
total Army force is the most diverse, the most talented, and
the most lethal force in our Nation's history.
Thank you for your continued work on NDAA [National Defense
Authorization Act] and the support for end strength growth. The
growth you have authorized will provide an even more diverse
and lethal mix of soldiers who protect and defend our Nation.
The Army continues to make full use of the new talent
management authorities granted by Congress in the NDAA 2019.
These authorities allow us and provide the flexibility to
amplify diversity, give people in our Army the opportunity to
be the best versions of themselves.
We published the ``Army People Strategy'' in October and
have focused on acquiring, developing, employing, and retaining
our force, and it reaffirms that a diverse Army is one of our
strategic outcomes.
The Army's committed to equality of opportunity and
providing all of our talented people with the opportunity of a
fulfilling and rewarding professional career. The ``Army People
Strategy'' main effort, acquiring talent, is defined as the
ability to identify and recruit the diverse military and
civilian talents needed to organize, train, and equip a force
ready for prompt multi-domain operations, to include sustained
combat operations.
As we work to ensure a diverse workforce through the
acquiring and retaining lines of effort, I would like to share
some examples of our success.
First, the Army has increased our Hispanic representation
in all three components over the last 5 years from 12.5 percent
to 14.6 percent of the total Army.
Second, the Army has increased female representation in all
three components over the last 5 years from 16.6 percent to 18
percent of the total Army. We have seen the first female Ranger
School graduate go on to complete her assignment as the first
female infantry company commander and then go on to deploy with
the Security Force Assistance Brigade in Afghanistan.
We want our Army to look like our Nation and to reflect
what is best of our citizens. As the country becomes more
diverse, so has the Army. Today the makeup of the Army
generally reflects the U.S. population.
Given today's challenging recruiting environment, it is
crucial that the Army leverage every tool available to
understand what motivates and inspires and attracts qualified
individuals to serve in the military.
Our approach to diversity includes diversity of thought,
talent, knowledge, skills, and experience, which adds to the
richness of our Army. We recruit soldiers from every State and
territory so that we truly represent our country.
To ensure a diversified pool of recruits, the Army is
producing marketing products in multiple languages to raise
awareness in different audiences. We are also conducting
recruiting and outreach activities focused on educating
minority groups about the opportunities available in the Army.
Once we acquire the personnel, we must also continue to
retain the most talented soldiers, noncommissioned officers,
and officers with the experience and skills necessary to meet
our current and future needs.
Our initiatives are developed with the benefits of
diversity in mind. In fiscal year 2019, the total Army achieved
its retention mission, with the Active Component retaining more
than 88 percent of the eligible population. The Army is also on
track to achieve the retention mission in fiscal year 2020. The
force we retain has a rich diversity based on talent,
performance, and potential.
Madam Chairwoman Speier, Ranking Member Kelly,
distinguished members of the committee, the Army appreciates
your continued support from the committee over the many
decades. I thank you for your generous and unwavering support
of our soldiers, our civilian professionals, and their
families, and your emphasis on diversity across our military.
People first, winning matters.
[The prepared statement of General Seamands can be found in
the Appendix on page 43.]
Ms. Speier. Thank you, General.
Admiral Nowell.
STATEMENT OF VADM JOHN B. NOWELL, JR., USN, CHIEF OF NAVAL
PERSONNEL, UNITED STATES NAVY
Admiral Nowell. Chairwoman Speier, Ranking Member Kelly,
and distinguished subcommittee members, thank you for the
opportunity to appear to discuss diversity and recruiting and
retention.
The Navy has a proud legacy of providing opportunities for
people of diverse backgrounds. David Farragut and Horacio
Rivero were our first admirals of Hispanic heritage and Samuel
Gravely our first African-American flag officer. In 1980, Janie
L. Mines became the first African-American female graduate of
the U.S. Naval Academy, and in 1996, Lillian Fishburne the
first African-American woman promoted to flag rank.
In this century, Vice Admiral Carol Pottenger became the
first woman to command an expeditionary strike group; Vice
Admiral Nora Tyson the first to command a carrier strike group;
and in 2014, Admiral Michelle Howard became the first female
four-star admiral in history, the first African-American woman
to hold the post of vice chief, and the first woman four-star
operational commander.
These are just a few pioneers who have entered the history
books through distinguished Navy careers. By their
achievements, they have demonstrated the strength of a diverse
Navy. Yet, we have made far too little progress, far too
slowly, and we are committed to changing that.
The emerging challenges of great power competition demand
that we remain one step ahead of our adversaries who are
persistently challenging our traditional warfighting dominance
through new and innovative methods.
To do this, we are institutionalizing a culture of
inclusion and diversity. We know that one of the key components
to maintaining our edge is leveraging an inclusive culture to
enhance our greatest warfighting advantage and our asymmetric
asset, our people.
We are empowering Navy leaders as force multipliers in
promoting inclusion and diversity. We have increased
participation of diverse talent in outreach events and
marketing materials. We have highlighted the Navy's culture,
benefits, and programs to showcase Navy as an employer of
choice.
We are investing in marketing strategies that highlight
force diversity and leadership and development opportunities
for people of all races, color, religions, sex, or national
origin. Nineteen percent of our recruiting media budget focuses
on multicultural and female prospects. All social media content
reflects diversity within the Navy and the recruiting market.
We offer NROTC [Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps]
scholarships to minority-serving institutions and preparatory
programs, and over one-quarter of this year's U.S. Naval
Academy accessions were female and minorities.
We are implementing strategic coaching and mentoring
programs across the career continuum, and through standardized
inclusion and diversity, core competencies and skills, we have
enhanced our ability to develop and retain sailors.
Thank you for your support of these efforts and for your
unwavering commitment to the men and women of the United States
Navy and their families. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Nowell can be found in
the Appendix on page 54.]
Ms. Speier. Thank you, Admiral.
General Kelly.
STATEMENT OF LT GEN BRIAN T. KELLY, USAF, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF
FOR MANPOWER, PERSONNEL AND SERVICES, UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
General Kelly. Chairwoman Speier, Ranking Member Kelly,
distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today to discuss your Air
Force's ongoing diversity and inclusion efforts in recruiting
and retention.
We understand we must leverage and optimize the diverse
sets of ideas, experiences, and perspectives necessary for
generating solutions across our spectrum of challenges, and the
Air Force considers diversity a warfighting imperative.
As such, the Air Force set a goal for our force to mirror
and be representative of the population of Americans eligible
to serve by race, gender, and ethnicity.
To track progress toward that goal, we have implemented a
monthly Diversity Inclusion Council chaired by the Chief of
Staff of the United States Air Force and consisting of key
members of the staff and field commanders responsible for
recruiting, development, and retention. The council also
includes mentors who represent diverse perspectives and who
come from both our current and retired population of airmen.
Within our aligned goal, the current population of
Americans eligible to serve is 57 percent women, while our Air
Force consists of 22 percent women. The current population of
African Americans eligible to serve is 7 percent and our Air
Force has 15 percent, with 6 percent in the officer corps. The
current population of Americans with Hispanic ethnicity is 9.5
percent, while our Air Force is comprised of 13 percent, with 7
percent in the officer corps.
While we have made strides in improving our diversity with
a 4 percent increase in female airmen and a 5 percent increase
in racial and ethnically diverse airmen over the last 10 years,
the demographics indicate we still have a long way to go to
satisfy and maintain our warfighting imperative.
Recognizing these facts, our Diversity and Inclusion
Council focuses on accelerating the pace of our gains and
improvements over time. Recognizing that operational career
fields, particularly rated career fields with aviation, as well
cyber and space, tend to advance to higher ranks at greater
proportions, we have embarked on improving representation
within these communities.
The Air Force created a Rated Diversity Improvement
Strategy to engage, collaborate, and innovate across the four
primary lines of effort: pre-accessions, accessions, initial
training, and career.
This plan features 20 unique initiatives and projects with
funding in fiscal year 2019 totaling over $10 million. One of
our projects focuses on exploring underrepresented groups to
operational career fields, as many youth do not know that they
can be exposed to these kind of areas.
We also know that Air Force Junior ROTC [Reserve Officers'
Training Corps] cadets are 10 times more likely to join Air
Force ROTC and 25 times more likely to enter USAFA [United
States Air Force Academy] compared to non-Air Force Junior ROTC
students.
In addition, the current ROTC students are 60 percent
minority and 40 percent female, meaning we have a target
population. In 2019, 31 percent minority and 29 percent female
joined what we now call the Flight Academy. This provides a
standup in 2018 that allows us to target and expose these
underrepresented groups with 28 ROTC scholarships, 122 new
pilots, and 12 academy appointments from the small cohort.
While these numbers are small, we believe making an
investment in today's youth will provide significant over time
improvement in diversity in Hispanic and underrepresented
groups.
We have also focused our female applicant pool within the
accession sources and have targeted several venues, including
Women in Aviation, Girls in Aviation, and others with similar
outreach on diverse sites.
Although the Air Force recognizes recruiting as the
starting point of the ecosystem, retention plays an equally
important role in building a more diverse force. While our
overall diverse population and recruiting numbers have
improved, we have not been as successful in retaining women and
diverse airmen in longer careers.
The retention rate for our female officers in the years 6
to 10 is 50 percent of the retention rate for their male
counterparts. Likewise, the population of female officers at
the O-6 and general officer ranks is 15 percent and 8.3
percent, respectively, compared to 25 percent at the company
grade officer ranks. The population of diverse officers at the
O-6 and general officer ranks is similar, with 14 percent and
6.6 percent, compared to 29 percent at the company grade
officer ranks.
The focus on retention for us has created several barrier
analysis working groups to identify barriers to retention and
barriers to advancement. The results of these working groups
have allowed us to make policy changes that assist with
limiting unnecessary challenges and providing development
opportunities that enhance family life and career balance and
do not put female and minority groups sacrificing one over the
other.
The Air Force has implemented several of these and
continues to do so, including exempting female airmen from
deployment or TDY [temporary duty assignment] for 12 months
after giving birth unless they volunteer, and creating and
publishing a requirement for access to lactation facilities,
such as rooms or pods.
The Air Force continues the Career Intermission Program and
looks to expand that with your help. Just this past summer, the
Air Force held a fit program where we looked at new uniform
items, flight suits, one-piece coveralls, and aviation bladders
as a way to help us make sure that we are being responsive to
our female airmen.
In conclusion, the Air Force continues to fully
operationalize diversity and inclusion to leverage the Nation's
greatest asset, its remarkable diverse citizenry, but we know
we have a lot more to go. We are committed to leveraging
diversity to our advantage and look forward to partnering with
the Congress in our endeavors to protect and defend our great
Nation.
I thank you for your continued support of your Air Force,
those in uniform, our civilian professionals, and the families
who have supported them, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Kelly can be found in
the Appendix on page 63.]
Ms. Speier. Thank you, General.
General Rocco.
STATEMENT OF LTGEN MICHAEL A. ROCCO, USMC, DEPUTY COMMANDANT
FOR MANPOWER AND RESERVE AFFAIRS, UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS
General Rocco. Chairwoman Speier, Ranking Member Kelly, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today to discuss recruiting,
retention, and diversity in the Marine Corps.
Since our founding in 1775, Marines have answered our
Nation's call faithfully, serving the American people and
maintaining a high standard of military excellence. Then and
now, everything starts and ends with the individual Marine.
Your Marines are recruited, trained, educated, and retained to
win our Nation's battles. They are smart, resilient, fit, and
disciplined.
Recruiting high-quality women and men while retaining the
best and brightest continues to make the Corps stronger.
Diversity remains critical to the Marine Corps. It is our
responsibility to ensure the Marine Corps is comprised of the
best and brightest from every segment of our diverse society.
Diversity must be included in meaningful ways in order to
take advantage of the wide array of aptitudes and perspectives
necessary to maintain our current and future warfighting
excellence. We are committed to capitalizing on the knowledge,
skills, abilities, performance, and potential of every Marine.
Diversity in the Marine Corps is increasing. In 2010, 30
percent of the Marines identified as minority. Today that
number is over 40 percent, and we expect these numbers to
continue to rise as 44 percent of all accessions in fiscal year
2019 identify as minorities.
In 2010, 6.7 percent of the Marine Corps was female. It is
now almost 9 percent. These numbers should also continue to
rise as females are now over 10 percent of all accessions. Last
year, 12.7 percent of officer accessions were females,
representing the highest percentage of female officer
accessions in the Marine Corps since the establishment of the
All-Volunteer Force.
Females represented in previously closed MOSs are also on
the rise. Six months ago, I testified before you, reporting
that 507 females were in previously restricted units. That
number is now 650.
Females who have earned these MOSs have also increased.
When I last testified, there were 203 females serving in
previously closed MOSs. Today, that number is 257. And we now
have our first female F-35 pilot and first female
Reconnaissance Marine.
We have achieved our accession success by increasing our
female inclusive marketing and by focusing direct mail and
advertising to generate awareness and highlight opportunities
in the Marine Corps. We are also partnered with a host of
diverse organizations across the Nation. We have recruiters
assigned to every square mile, every Zip Code, and every public
school in our Nation. Our goal is to reach the youth and
influencers, from the most rural of small towns to the largest
of cities.
Our recruiters work extremely hard. Their task is
challenging. Only 30 percent of age-qualified youth are
qualified for the military and only 10 percent are interested
in serving. And less than 8 percent of the females are
interested.
On the retention side, we are leveraging technology to help
understand and someday predict why individuals decide to join
the Marine Corps, as well as remain a Marine. These efforts
include improving current data collection and management,
longitudinal accession, retention, and exit surveys, along with
cognitive and noncognitive testing, with the objective of
identifying and fitting the right person with the right skill
into the right billet.
Even with our success there is still a lot of work to be
done. While females and Marines who identify as minorities
promote at nearly the same rate and sometimes higher than other
Marines, they remain underrepresented at higher officer ranks,
especially at the general officer level. However, we believe
that our efforts today will pay dividends as our junior
officers populations are now more diverse. Today's junior
officers will be tomorrow's senior leaders.
Inextricably intertwined with recruiting, retention, and
diversity is culture. We need to make sure the Marine Corps
culture is one of respect, dignity, and inclusion for all.
We can do better. This is evident from the research
surveys, townhalls, and just talking with Marines. A recent
study on Marine Corps culture, which we commissioned,
illustrated where we have fallen short.
But we are working tirelessly to self-assess and improve.
We are updating our fitness report system, which encourages
reporting seniors to address diversity. Specifically, and I
quote the order, summarize the Marine's ability to manage
commander's intent and execute higher expressed goals while
fostering a positive command climate with an emphasis on
readiness, mission, diversity, and accountability.
Command climate assessments have been reordered and will
now be taken to the command prior to the command turnover.
Reporting seniors now have the results prior to that final
fitness report.
We have published a comprehensive prohibited activities and
conduct order. We have established a Talent Management
Oversight Directorate led by the Assistant Commandant, and I am
on the executive council.
We have started an Exit and Milestone Longitudinal Survey
Program to assess why Marines join and why do they choose to
leave. Every Marine now takes a Tailored Adaptive Personality
Assessment System, or TAPAS, test, and we have included
unconscious bias training in all our schools.
The topic is on the minds of all Marines, especially senior
leadership, as it should be. It is, more than anything, a
leadership issue. Marine leaders must not just talk about
changing culture, they must be an example of how to treat your
fellow Marines and all individuals with dignity, respect,
empathy, and compassion. Be servant leaders.
I personally consider this my ultimate responsibility. I am
proud to represent the men and women of character, the few, the
proud. I look forward to answering your questions.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of General Rocco can be found in
the Appendix on page 73.]
Ms. Speier. Thank you, General.
All right. I am going to start with you, General Rocco.
Following the initial Marines United scandal, the Corps
commissioned a report on Marine culture, especially as it
relates to gender equality. That report is dated March 2018,
but was only quietly published publicly in September of 2019.
Have you read the report?
General Rocco. I have.
Ms. Speier. Thank you. I saw the Commandant commented on
the report over the weekend, and I appreciated his statements
against sexist attitudes in the Marines.
Has he read the report as well?
General Rocco. I believe--I know he has been briefed on it.
I can't say if he has actually read it.
Ms. Speier. So if he hasn't, I would urge you to suggest to
him that he read.
The report draws a distinction between parity, where
everyone gets the same treatment, and equity, where different
experiences and needs are accounted for in promoting diversity,
saying that Marines interviewed, quote, ``conflated equality
with sameness when determining what is fair.''
Do you agree with the report's conclusion that the Marine
Corps' messaging should promote a notion of equality that
accounts for different experiences and contexts rather than one
that seeks to treat everyone the same?
General Rocco. That is an important question, Chairwoman.
Thank you for asking that.
I would start with we are a standard-based organization, so
there is a standard to be held. But I would also take into
account, because of the diversity and the importance of
experiences and what that brings to the table, that we need to
also temper that with the experience that that individual
Marine has come to the table with.
So, yes, I would agree with you, we maintain a standard.
But the reason why it is important, diversity is important,
because different people look at different problem sets and
come to a different conclusion. And I think that is very
healthy for the institution to bring on board and to appreciate
and to respect.
Ms. Speier. So this year the Marines' birthday message from
the Commandant lasted 8 minutes, but only contained footage of
women for 6 seconds or 1.25 percent of the run time. Do you
think that is a problem?
General Rocco. I thought the message was well received. As
far as only representation, I did not parse the video and look
at female Marines for 6 seconds or tall Marines for this long
or minority Marines for that long.
So I think it probably--I know it is being looked at from
the public affairs perspective as far as the message and what
that unintended messaging was. And I think we are doing an
internal look at we possibly could have got that a little bit
better.
Ms. Speier. I would agree, you could have gotten that a
little bit better, because in some respects it reinforces the
notion that women aren't really welcomed in the Marines.
General Berger told Military.com that including more women
in the video would have been an artificial elevation and treat
people by two different standards, ``and we don't do that in
the Marine Corps.''
I hope that that, upon reflection, is not what he really
intended to mean, because we have really got to change the
culture. And I think you were nodding in appreciation of the
fact. So I will leave that.
Let me now move on to General Seamands.
You were quoted in your statement: We want the Army to look
like our Nation. In 2040, our Nation will be majority minority.
So I think as you look at your responsibilities, that is a huge
shift in the population of our military if we are going to
continue to reflect the Nation that is the United States.
Do you have any comments on that?
General Seamands. Yes, ma'am. We are looking at the same
demographics in the future makeup of our country. We are doing
a number of things to try and make the Army get on the--
continue the Army on the glide path to look like our Nation.
For example, we have 22 focus cities where our recruiters
are out there in areas we perhaps walked away from during the
drawdown and other times. So urban areas, places like Atlanta,
Seattle, where we didn't have much of a presence, we have
reinvested in those areas which represent a rich diversity of
our country.
We have programs like we are taking a look at Houston and
Los Angeles to see what kind of things we can do to both
encourage college-bound applicants to go into ROTC and join the
Army, as well as applicants who want to come and serve the
Army.
How do you tap into that market? How do you communicate
with them? How do you resonate and explain to them that 150
specialties, everything from a doctor to a lawyer to an
infantryman, is an available outcome.
Our marketing, ``What is Your Warrior?'' program, that is
out there, actually talks about the diversity of the Army in
terms of who is in the commercials, as well as the various
opportunities that are out there.
Ms. Speier. All right. Thank you.
Ranking Member Kelly.
Mr. Kelly of Mississippi. One of the things that I know is
the military is a family business. And so when we start on a
recruiting pool, a lot of times you start with that same
business. My brother retired as a command sergeant major, my
father retired as a first sergeant, that is me personally. But
most of them it is a family business, it continues.
So what are we doing in each of the services to expand
beyond those people who have traditionally served? Because they
want to be in, they just don't know they want to be in. We as
parents teach our kids that. What are you doing to reach this
other group?
General Seamands. Representative Kelly, thank you very
much.
I will say I am guilty as charged. I have a picture of my
daughter, she just got out of Joint Readiness Training Center
after about 30 days of intense training. I told her I was going
to bring her to Congress today.
But I am very proud of her. Your point is well taken. It is
a family business. My dad was in the Army, my brother was in
the Army. And we do have to get outside the gates and into the
local communities and explain the value proposition, the
purpose you get when you join the Army.
And so as we bring people in from across the Army a couple
of things we have done. We have sent some recruiters back to
the places where they were. We have a program called ``Meet
Your Army'' where we send Army leaders out to areas where there
is not a big Army presence to meet with school superintendents
and have discussions about why their citizens should be
interested in the Army, what the opportunities are. We are
engaging guidance counselors, we are engaging teachers,
influencers across the board to help tell the story of the Army
and to expand our pool.
Mr. Kelly of Mississippi. I am going to go on to the next
one.
You know pre-all-volunteer military folks got a lot of
options. They got, you can go to Vietnam or you can go to jail.
You can go in the Army or you can go to jail.
That wasn't all bad, because when you look back, as a
former prosecutor, the people that I helped in life were not
necessarily the ones I put in jail, they were the ones that I
gave an option and a path to keep from going to jail.
So in the military what are we doing to reach out to those
same kids who wound up retiring as command sergeant majors who
had no path but jail on their horizon when they got jail or
Vietnam? What are we doing to reach out to those kids to give
them other options which give them a chance for a very
beneficial career to them?
And let's go with Lieutenant General Rocco, because most of
those guys could be definitely Marines.
General Rocco. Thank you. Thank you, Ranking Member Kelly.
So the Junior ROTC programs I think are very effective. I
think those are probably, short of the ROTC programs in the
colleges that are very competitive, I think that is a great
introduction to try to reach out to some of those folks and
take some of that. And many of those leaders for us are senior
enlisted that have retired that I say walk the walk and talk
the talk. So they really can connect with them.
They generally go back to their home towns, so be it from--
and as I mentioned in my opening comments, we have
representation throughout both rural America, large cities,
inner cities. So that ability to reach out to those families.
I have got a list here of other things that we do. Central
Intercollegiate Athletic Association, the National Society of
Black Engineers, the Society of Hispanic Professional
Engineers, the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers. We
send representation and folks to all these different venues
that traditionally have not had military.
I myself do not come from a military family. I am the first
in my family to volunteer into the military.
Mr. Kelly of Mississippi. And this is for you, too, because
we are limited on time. But I am reading a book ``The Immortal
Irishman'' now, and General Meagher. It was horrible to be
Irish in America pre-Civil War, but he got all those Sons of
Erin and took them and made them warriors on the battlefield
and made it a proud thing to be an Irishman who was in the
military. But at that time it was like really bad to be in the
military.
So recruiting-wise--so he was a great recruiter, right? So
you see a great Irishman, one of the seven, and you want to be
like him. So what are you guys doing to make sure that our
recruiters reflect who our people want to be? What are we doing
to have female recruiters and African-American and Hispanic
recruiters to go get those kids that we want to increase
diversity?
And that is for the Lieutenant General and Vice Admiral
Nowell.
General Kelly. Thanks, Ranking Member.
I think, first, you are right, we have got to have
recruiting representation that represents all those pools that
we want to be. You have to see it to want to be it, right, and
you are out there.
So we use not only our increase in recruiters, we have
added about 189 recruiters, but we use what we call the Gold
Bar program. So new airmen, new lieutenants who can represent,
we take them and we put them back in the communities from which
they came. They get to see those folks, they get to go to the
influencers and talk to them.
We recently had a fly-in event, we call it a fly-in event,
in the Dallas-Fort Worth area where we flew in two female
aviator generals, a number of female captains, female
lieutenants into those communities, Hispanic female aviator
into those communities, and had them go out and connect with
the local ROTCs and Junior ROTCs so they can see themselves and
talk and influence those folks who are out there. So those are
the kind of things that we doing in addition to what General
Rocco said.
Admiral Nowell. Sir, we are doing some things very similar
to what General Kelly said. I would also mention that we have
shifted to a digital marketing and advertising, we are getting
into the space that those young people are in, and then we are
showing them--one of things that we have is ``Faces of the
Fleet.'' These are sailors that are telling their story, and we
built diversity into that.
So for instance, Lieutenant Aric McGee in ``The Ascender,''
he is the grandson of one of the Tuskegee Airmen, and he tells
his story. He is an MH-60R Romeo helicopter pilot. That has
gotten 1.5 million views and that directly translates into
leads that we go out--and a lot of these are young people that
say: Wow, he looks like me, I think I could do that.
Mr. Kelly of Mississippi. I yield back.
Ms. Speier. Thank you.
At some point in the near future could you make available
to the committee the gender and ethnicity of your recruiters so
we can review that?
All right. Congresswoman Davis.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to
all of you in your dedication to service.
I know as I looked at some of the materials here there have
been a lot of studies looking at recruiting, retention, how we
align the needs with the community. And I am just wondering,
out of all of that, what has been the hardest thing to actually
do within those areas of recommendations?
General Kelly. I will start, Congresswoman.
I think the hardest thing for us is to connect with those
communities where you don't have the legacy of military service
and connect with people and get them interested in and
propensed for military service. So it is this mission of
inspiring and showing opportunity and connecting with those
folks that there are these opportunities for them to do other
than jail or Vietnam.
So I think that is the hard part for us, is how do you
inspire a group of Americans to want to join and not just be
from the legacy of the previous family parts. And so we are
working hard at that and looking at role models and things. But
I think that is where we find the toughest challenges in places
for us.
General Rocco. I would like to just jump on that real
quick, ma'am.
As I mentioned in my opening remarks--what was easy? The
easiest part was we have listed readiness, mission, diversity,
and accountability as a benchmark for a commander to be
reported on. So diversity is in the same category as readiness,
which for the Marine Corps is absolutely groundbreaking.
And what I found in the CAOCL [Center for Advanced
Operational Culture Learning] study, which is probably the most
interesting, and now all the senior leaders that go out and
discuss, and we talk at all the different classes--I am sorry,
the academies and the schools in the commanders course--and it
came out of the CAOCL study, was how do you teach a Marine
empathy? And that is a great--and that was kind of the bell
that kind of rung for me. And that is something----
Mrs. Davis. Have we achieved that?
General Rocco. Well, we do and we discuss. And we discuss
and we talk about it from personal experiences. We were just
talking about, I missed my father's funeral because I was
deployed. We have a Marine division commander who talks about a
special needs child that he has that he has dealt with through
his career.
And when you start talking about--so the same families and
the same folks that are in that situation, that similar
situation looking at a Marine general or a senior leader going,
okay, they somehow got through, that is important.
And when we are looking at it from a commander and writing
reports on it, I think that is how we teach it.
Mrs. Davis. Because I think part of it is what are people--
what are we finding that the young people are afraid of, what
scares them from even considering it? And how do you make sure
that the influencers are available to talk to? Not just that,
but are sort of on the ground floor to create some of these
inspirational videos, if you will. I don't know how much of
that is being done by the very people that you are trying to
reach.
Admiral Nowell. Ma'am, I will just jump on that as well,
because one of the things that we are finding is it is not just
about getting our ``Faces of the Fleet'' or we have rating
videos where they get to see folks that look like themselves.
It is them then taking those and then sending that back out,
and so getting that additional bounce. It is about reaching
them.
And I think General Rocco and General Kelly had it right,
it is about culture and how do we make sure--so not just
bringing them in, how do we then keep that inclusive and
diverse force? And so we are spending a lot of time working at
all levels of leadership to get that into the education
program.
Mrs. Davis. I wanted to ask you as well about junior
officers, because is it correct to say that if we actually
worked as hard as possible and made sure there were no barriers
to people who could rise and ascend within your services, and
you are all kind of competing against one another in many ways,
that would make a huge difference.
And they are there, they are in our services. And yet, in
every report there are countless barriers that are noted.
So what is that? Where does that leadership come from to be
sure that we have those opportunities and that we are helping
and assisting them to be able to take the measures that are
needed over time? It doesn't happen overnight. You know that.
General Kelly. Congressman, you hit on it. There are all
kinds of challenges. And I mentioned the barrier analysis
working groups that we do, and we identify a variety of issues
and things that come up. We have had four female airmen rise to
the rank of four-star, one to be the first female combatant
commander, Lieutenant General Lori Robinson.
But for every one of those in the cohort, if we don't
retain the ones we have, the 25, 26 percent that we have at O-
1, by the time they get to O-6, O-7, O-8 the cohort in the pool
is so small. So we are working really hard on identifying those
barriers and trying to knock down those barriers.
And the barriers are coming from them. We are asking them:
What are your issues? Where are you at? The analysis groups,
the barrier analysis groups, are made up of the ground floor,
grassroots airmen that are telling us what is going on.
Ms. Speier. So what are they telling you in terms of----
General Kelly. It is a variety of issues. So you hit on
during your opening comments, Chairwoman, about the challenge
between trying to do career and family versus service. And we
have tried to do a lot of things and continue to do a lot of
things to remove that. Don't make it an either-or. How do we
balance both and what do we put in place to do both?
Simple things like female equipment, for helmets and
bladder control and flight suits that weren't there that just
become unnecessary and annoyances, that we are just trying to
remove those annoyances so that we don't have these issues
where somebody is going to feel like, ``Why do I want to stay
if I am not as appreciated?'' the cultural things that General
Rocco talked about.
Ms. Speier. I was just recently told that--and I don't know
which service it is--but that the female uniforms are more
expensive than the male uniforms.
So would you take that back and report back to us on what
the costs are? Because that is coming out of their pockets
after the initial uniform, is it not?
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
beginning on page 115.]
Ms. Speier. All right. Thank you.
Mr. Cisneros.
Mr. Cisneros. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And thank you
all for being here today, gentlemen.
General Rocco, I am going to address this question towards
you, but it is really open to anybody who can answer it.
So I have a friend who is a Marine who enlisted, did ECP
[Enlisted Commissioning Program], which the Marines help pay
for. Later on was sent to school by the Marines to get a
master's degree. The Marine was promoted to major and he hit
his 20 years.
Now, the Marines invested a lot of money in him, in
educating him and helping him out. But at the 20-year point he
decided to retire. And we can't prevent individuals from
retiring at 20 years.
But what are we doing when we have these individuals that
we are investing a lot of money in and really grooming them, or
hopefully be grooming them, how are we convincing them to stay
in the Marine Corps or any service when we have invested this
money in them--and my friend, too, he is Latino, I should say
that as well--especially when we see that there is a lack of
diversity up in the senior ranks.
General Rocco. Thank you for the question.
Not knowing the individual case, so what we have done is we
have started the Exit and Milestone Longitudinal Accession
Survey, and what that is designed to do is basically
categorize--and we are using artificial intelligence to capture
all this data--as to why the person joined the Marine Corps in
the first place.
Then at different career points they take the survey again
to see what they like or don't like about the Marine Corps. At
the 4-year mark for enlisted. At the officers it is the career
designation point. And then, of course, it is when they get
promoted to major. And then it is when they leave.
At this point right now, we don't have enough data to be
conclusive on it, but he is absolutely somebody that I would
love to talk to, because we have invested a lot.
In my job as Manpower and Reserve Affairs, we have a lot of
graduate, Naval Postgraduate officers that are pulled out of
their MOSs and they are sent to Monterey. They receive a
graduate degree in a technical field and then they become data
analysis. And they are very important on the work that we do.
They actually promote at a higher rate than if you did not
go to Naval Postgraduate School. And I have it broken down by
ethnicity and broken down by gender. But the fact of the matter
is that is someone that we would have wanted to hold on to.
I can't speak to why he would have left, and the reasons
are varied. But that is someone, as you say, we have invested a
lot of money in.
And I think, and not really as a warning, but our new
system, our BRS [Blended Retirement System] system, I think is
updated. It is a great retirement system. I fully support it.
But we have now moved that 20-year mark, which is retirement,
and we have moved that to about 12 years where the individual
member can leave the military with an awful lot of money.
And that is something that we are looking at and we are
putting in a lot of brainpower into trying to figure out what
exactly we need to do to now, instead of capturing that 20-
year-old major--or 20-year Marine--we now have to do that at 12
years, which is a disadvantage because they are much more
marketable at 12 years of service vice a little bit older at 20
years.
Mr. Cisneros. And, Vice Admiral Nowell, I will address this
question to you.
So I did Navy ROTC, and I was a political science major,
but I recently went back and I looked at the requirements and I
would not have been able to get that ROTC scholarship. It is
pretty much all STEM [science, technology, engineering, and
math] careers or STEM majors, is what they are looking for
today.
And when you look at a lot of the people that are studying
STEM in college, it is not women, it is not people of color.
And I am sure a lot of you really kind of have that same
emphasis on STEM in the officers that you are looking for.
Really are there any programs that any of the services are
running to reach down to maybe into the middle schools, the
high schools, to partner with them, to kind of get people of
color, to get women involved in STEM, and really help groom
them into becoming those future military officers?
Admiral Nowell. Sir, thank you for those questions. And you
are exactly right, we do think that we have got to get to that
level. We do that with some of the influencers that you
mentioned earlier as well as the JROTC units.
When you look at that diversity, I think the statistic is
something like 42 percent female and 62 percent ethnically and
racially diverse.
So one of the things that we have started to go ahead and
try and give some folks a leg up as they compete for those ROTC
scholarships is something we call the NROTC Preparatory
Program. It is patterned after the Naval Academy Preparatory
School where we will give folks a 1-year tuition-free stay
there at NAPS before they go to the Naval Academy, but
institutions are paying for room, board, and tuition for these
students. And if they get through, then we will guarantee them
a 4-year scholarship.
We have 67 in that program this year, with a goal of 200
over the next few years. And these are colleges and
universities partnering with us and looking at the talent at
that lower level that you mentioned to then try and make sure
that we have a more diverse population there at NROTC, as well
as the Naval Academy and OCS [Officer Candidate School].
Mr. Cisneros. Thank you. I yield back my time.
Ms. Speier. Thank you.
Are the other services doing that as well?
General Seamands. Chairwoman Speier, within the Army the
United States Military Academy has programs that go out to STEM
programs to seventh and eighth graders both at West Point and a
traveling show to make awareness about the opportunities within
the Army and to encourage them to consider a service.
Ms. Speier. Air Force?
General Kelly. Yes, Chairwoman, we are doing similar kind
of programs, including a drone UAS [unmanned aircraft systems]
kind of program where we go out to middle schools and high
schools to get them interested in that. We participate in
Hispanic STEM Week, a variety of ways to try and get down to
those organizations and try to influence at that level, knowing
that you have to start early.
Ms. Speier. General Rocco.
General Rocco. Well, not surprisingly, the Marine Corps,
while STEM is important, I mentioned in my opening remarks
about TAPAS [Tailored Adaptive Personality Assessment System].
And what we have really determined is more important than
education or what that undergraduate degree--or what the
education is, it is the grit. It is the grit and determination
to perform in the military.
So that is why we are having everybody take the TAPAS test,
which is basically a grit test and cognitive--I am sorry,
noncognitive test, that will you succeed in the demanding
environment of the military.
Ms. Speier. All right.
Congresswoman Escobar.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Chairwoman. And thank you so much,
gentlemen, for your service and for your testimony today.
Back in my home district, as I am sure my colleagues can
understand, we have lots of incredible young people who are
asking for our support as they apply to the service academies.
And it is one of the most wonderful aspects of the job to see
all of these hopeful faces, these young people who are excited
about their future and have so much to offer our country.
And in my community, the district I represent, El Paso,
Texas, we are a minority-majority community, home to Fort
Bliss, and 85 percent of my constituency is Latino, a quarter
are immigrants. And to see so many young people of color and so
many young women envision their career as a service member is
exciting. But the numbers in terms of their ability to break
through and to get into leadership is heartbreaking.
And we have talked a little bit about women, which
obviously is important to me, as well as the topic of Latinos
and Latinas in service. Eighteen percent of Americans are
Latino, and that is reflected in the military, absolutely. And
I can tell you, we have so many Latino members of the community
who, again, have devoted their lives in service and whose
children are also wanting to devote their lives to service.
But only 8 percent of the military is made up of Latino
officers, and that number shrinks. The number is actually
really shocking to me. Only 2 percent of Latinos make it to
general and flag officers.
And so all of you have given a lifetime of service. I am
very curious, just your own personal perspective, why is this
the case?
General Seamands. Thank you for the question.
I would submit that when we talk about general officers or
flag officers, if we are looking at the captains or colonels,
we are almost too late in the equation. We have to get, kind of
to your point, to the accessions, to the lieutenants, to the
academies, to ROTC, and start the process.
So the Army is working to make up lost ground in terms of
our representation of Hispanics in the formation, but we won't
solve it today or tomorrow. It has got to be a long-term
approach. It has got to be an investment in those young men and
women who aspire to come into service and to encourage them to
serve, apply, and be competitive.
Right now our numbers don't look--aren't where they need to
be, and we will continue to work that. As Chairwoman Speier
said, by 2040, I think you said, 40 percent are minority-
majority. So we have to get after it, we have to focus on it,
and be deliberate in our efforts.
Ms. Escobar. And I so appreciate that, and you and I have
had this conversation before in my office and appreciate that
conversation. And I appreciate the commitment going forward. My
question is more of a look back. How did we get here?
General Kelly. Congresswoman, I don't have complete
analysis or a complete understanding of how we got here, but I
will tell you that one of the barriers that we have been able
to uncover through our barrier group is a lack of official
mentoring.
So there are lots of important effects that happen between
a mentee and mentor relationship. And so what we established is
we established this program we call MyVector that lets people
list their backgrounds and their interests and where they are
at and has mentors list their backgrounds and interests. And we
make pairs, and we make mentoring pairs, and we put
responsibility on the mentor to make sure they are doing
coaching and going through and giving good advice and giving
good help to those folks.
Because what we find out is sometimes our underrepresented
groups come in and by the time they get to those ranks they
didn't know, they didn't know about an opportunity, they didn't
know they should be doing certain things, they didn't know they
should be taking these steps that are going to increase their
chance for advancement.
So we are starting early on mentoring and making sure we
are doing that. We are hopeful that is going to improve that. I
don't know how we got there, but that is one of things that we
are doing to try and improve it.
Ms. Escobar. And it sounds like from what you are saying is
that sometimes service members don't know what opportunities
lie ahead. That is on us then, that is on us.
Gentlemen, anyone else?
General Seamands. If I can have an alibi, ma'am. Within the
Army we have migrated to what we call AIM-2 [Assignment
Interactive Module Version 2]. It is a marketplace for
officers. So we have 15,000 officers who are moving in summer
of 2020. In the past Human Resources Command would take a look
at an officer, what their qualifications were, and give them
three to five options.
We have put every assignment in the marketplace and
everybody had an opportunity, all 15,000, to make a value
proposition to the unit as to what I would bring to the unit,
and every unit has an opportunity to say this is why I want you
on my team.
And so we think that is going to increase the diversity.
There is a lot of talent out there, quiet people, introverts,
people who have exceptional capabilities that are not
recognized, and we think this will bring that to the top.
General Rocco. And, ma'am, that is a great question.
So on the enlisted side we actually do very well on the
senior enlisted side. When we look at our Latino promotion
rates at the E-8 and E-9 level, they do very well. On the
officer side, not as good, as you pointed out.
And I will say for the Marine Corps--and I don't have a
good answer for you--but I will tell you on the Marine Corps,
when you look at--we have less than 100 general officers. Our
average promotion rate to general officer for the population is
less than 3 percent. And right now we have 15 general officers
of diversity: 4 female, 5 African American, 3 Hispanic, and 3
Asian.
That statistic is not to defend we are doing well. We are
not doing well. We can always do better. But that is one of the
things that we are taking a look at. And, again, from analysis,
on the Exit and Milestone Longitudinal Survey that we are
doing, we are trying to gather that information. Because that
is one that stands out. Again, percentages not being the same,
we do better on the enlisted side; we don't do as well on the
officer side.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you. I am out of time. I yield back.
Ms. Speier. Thank you.
Actually, most of you could do a lot better in the officer
area than in the enlisted.
I am curious whether or not you have considered doing
recruiter bonuses to augment the numbers of persons of color
and women. Is that something that you have contemplated? Do you
ever give recruiting bonuses to recruiters? And if so, have you
contemplated doing it as it relates to people of color and
women?
Admiral Nowell. Ma'am, I will just let you know that
actually as we look at our recruiting force, and we fairly
recently transformed the way that we do recruiting from the
standpoint of going away from a single recruiter working
someone through the whole process to focusing on their
strengths. Are they best at sourcing and sales, finding,
classifying, or then onboarding? And that has reduced attrition
which is good for all categories.
But we have also added an incentive that if they, as a
team, meet their goals, and we do have the diversity goals,
then the team gets a kicker to their special duty assignment
pay. So we are using it in somewhat the manner that you just
described.
I will also mention that as you look at the sailors, the
future sailors that we are recruiting, there are incentives for
them to bring their friends in as well, and so, you know, that
helps us grow from that manner as well.
Ms. Speier. Any other comments?
General Rocco. Just in the Marine Corps, ma'am. So last
year, there was a 40 percent diversity on the enlisted side and
about 30 percent, just over 30 percent on the officer side. So
I think they are doing a good job, again, a merit or standards-
based organization.
Ms. Speier. Not in gender, though.
General Rocco. I am sorry?
Ms. Speier. Not in gender, though.
General Rocco. Yes, ma'am. We are low. That is exactly
right. Although we have increased it every year, we still
haven't--we haven't certainly gotten to where the population is
and where the female population is.
Ms. Speier. I think you need to go to girls' high schools.
Mr. Kelly of Mississippi. Can I make one comment? The only
thing I caution you about as the senior personnel, if we start
putting all of our women and minorities, okay, into drill
sergeants and into recruiters, we take them out of those key
qualifying positions, okay, whether it be NCOs [noncommissioned
officers], and so we may actually--when we are talking about
the senior level leaders, if we put them there, we may cheat
them out of being here. And I would just ask that you watch the
second- or third-order effects and make sure that we are--that
we are not putting all our women as recruiters or drill
sergeants or those commands and cheating them out of
opportunities to become GOs [general officers], and so I would
just really caution you on that.
Ms. Speier. A good point, a very good point, but
particularly for the academies. I think going to girls' high
schools and religious high schools, certainly in my experience,
I have a higher number of applicants from the Catholic schools
which is maybe just a phenomenon in my area, but it is worth
looking at for all of you.
All right. Any other questions for our panelists? I hope
you are all going to stay to listen to the second panel. Thank
you very much. We are going to take a couple of minutes recess
so we can change out the panel.
Thank you all very much for being here and obviously for
your service to our country.
[Recess.]
Ms. Speier. All right. We are now going to begin our second
panel. Thank you for being here. I guess we are missing Ms.
Campos-Palma. Is that right?
Ms. Williams. She is just in the restroom.
Ms. Speier. Oh. She is in the--okay. Well, we will give her
that. Okay.
Our first panelist is Ms. Kayla Williams. She is currently
a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
Kayla was enlisted in the Army for 5 years as an Arabic
linguist, serving in the Military Intelligence Company in the
101st Airborne Division. She is also the author of ``Love My
Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army.'' I
love the title of that.
Our second panelist is Pam Campos-Palma. She is currently a
strategist who is known for building change through grassroots
efforts. She has served in the Air Force as an operations and
antiterrorism intelligence analyst where she deployed to Iraq
and Afghanistan. She'll be joining us momentarily.
Finally, Bishop Garrison is a 2002 graduate of the U.S.
Military Academy and served two tours in Iraq prior to leaving
service. Mr. Garrison is currently the Director of National
Security Outreach at Human Rights First.
We will start with you, Ms. Williams. Thank you so much for
joining us today.
STATEMENT OF KAYLA M. WILLIAMS, FORMER U.S. ARMY LINGUIST
Ms. Williams. Thank you.
Chairwoman Speier, Ranking Member Kelly, distinguished
members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to
discuss a topic I believe is of vital importance to the long-
term strength of the United States military. It is an honor to
have been asked to share my experiences as a minority in the
military, including what drew me to service and why I left.
As a child, I occasionally got food stamps and free school
lunches. The shame of growing up in poverty was coupled with
gratitude that the Nation had invested in me. As a young adult,
I vowed my children would never have to experience the fear of
eviction. So anxiety drove me to pursue any opportunity to
enhance my long-term financial stability. The military offered
me training in high-value skills and access to the GI Bill, but
crucially, it also provided a way for me to repay my debt to
society through service.
During my 5 years in the Army, including a deployment to
Iraq, I acquired both tangible skills and invaluable intangible
attributes such as perseverance and confidence. Unfortunately,
being forced to constantly navigate an environment that
frequently seemed unwelcoming to women ultimately drove me out.
I faced chronic and pervasive gender discrimination and
sexual harassment ranging from snide comments and offensive
cadences to being repeatedly propositioned and experiencing
unwanted sexual contact. The pervasive attitude among my peers
was that this was to be expected in a male-dominated
environment.
Men almost universally discouraged reporting problematic
behavior because doing so might ruin the perpetrator's career.
Women often discouraged reporting as well, warning that doing
so would hurt my career. Lack of accountability when I did
report incidents was totally disheartening.
Sexual assault, harassment, and discrimination harm
military retention, full stop. Leaders must value the careers
of talented women over those of criminal men. Rates of
harassment and assault have not dropped substantially since I
left Active Duty. Reporting remains relatively low, and
retaliation is still high.
Recent examples of senior leaders being relieved of command
for sexual harassment or toxic command climate indicate to me
that the zero-tolerance message emanating from the top is still
not taken seriously at all lower levels. That type of bad
behavior was almost certainly apparent earlier in their careers
and did not stop these leaders from climbing in the ranks.
Extensive coverage of this concern affects recruiting as well.
Young women and their parents often ask me whether I would
recommend military service given this risk.
Other outdated and unfriendly policies and practices that
disproportionately affect women were the other major driver
behind my exit. Caregiving responsibilities that developed when
my spouse was severely injured in Iraq were incompatible with
Army life, and there were no off and on ramps at the time that
would have allowed me to resume my career effectively once he
was stabilized.
Athletic, muscular women who score high on physical fitness
tests are often subjected to outdated, inaccurate, embarrassing
tape tests to determine body fat percentage. Equipment and
clothing are often ill-fitting for women. In Iraq, men could
urinate in tubes right next to tents while wearing flip flops.
Women had to fully gear up and hike a quarter mile for every
bathroom break. The only socks for sale in the shopette were
size large. They never sold hair conditioner. Needing birth
control on deployment to regulate menstruation had to be
explained to providers or even commanders who did not
understand that this was about hygiene, not sex.
Each of these small indignities alone is minor and easy to
ignore. Cumulatively, they constitute a barrier that drives
down women's retention with death by a thousand cuts. The
combination of near daily personal interactions, waiver
requirements, and outdated policies that constantly remind
women we are other, outside who was being considered when norms
were established, forced to struggle to fit into an institution
designed for men. DOD [Department of Defense] and the services
should seek to identify and eliminate outdated and
discriminatory policies and practices across life domains to
keep talented women and other minorities once they are serving.
As the military works to modernize its recruiting
strategies and messaging, I also call upon Congress to increase
the number of young people who qualify for military service
through national programs to reduce obesity, increase physical
fitness, continue educational gains, and end the school-to-
prison pipeline, problems that disproportionately affect
military--I am sorry--minority communities. Congress should
also end discriminatory policies such as the military
transgender ban, and Members can ensure diversity among their
nominees for the service academies.
The military must compete for top talent across demographic
sectors in a rapidly diversifying Nation. And while I have
focused primarily on women, these issues are broad ranging and
intersectional. We risk critical failure should we need to
dramatically expand the size of the force and accordingly must
increase the population that can meet military standards,
improve recruitment so troops can better reflect our Nation,
and enhance efforts to retain talented personnel. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Williams can be found in the
Appendix on page 83.]
Ms. Speier. Thank you, Ms. Williams. Just for the record,
my three nominees last year were all female, the first time
ever.
Ms. Campos-Palma.
STATEMENT OF PAM CAMPOS-PALMA, FORMER U.S. AIR FORCE
INTELLIGENCE ANALYST
Ms. Campos-Palma. Thank you, Chairwoman Speier----
Ms. Speier. We introduced you in your absence, by the way.
Ms. Campos-Palma. Oh, thank you, I appreciate that--
[continuing] Ranking Member Kelly and members of the committee
for the opportunity to speak before you today.
My name is Pamela Campos-Palma. I served in the United
States Air Force as an operations intelligence analyst from
2006 to 2016 on Active Duty and as a reservist. While on Active
Duty, I had the privilege of serving overseas in Germany, Iraq,
Kyrgyzstan, and Afghanistan.
I was born and raised in a working-class town near Boston,
Massachusetts. My mother immigrated there from Honduras. She
was the one who pushed me to enlist when I was 18 years old
after a school administrator dissuaded me from applying for
college based on her racial bias that, quote, someone like me
would not succeed there.
Not having any connections to college-educated people and
having no familiarity with the U.S. military, my mother took me
to the recruiter's office and had me enlist for money for
college, a chance at upward mobility, and the opportunity to
serve my country.
I chose the intelligence career field, knowing nothing
about it except it required high ASVAB [Armed Services
Vocational Aptitude Battery] scores and was among the most
difficult military jobs to get into. I assumed it would grant
me the best chance to work in a secure environment and have
better job prospects.
My military career was full of challenges. Some grew me in
incredible ways, and others were rooted in systemic failures
that resulted in unjustified harms, avoidable inequities, and
made it largely untenable for me to serve to the best of my
ability and with integrity.
I count myself lucky that my career started with a senior
intelligence officer, an SIO, at my first unit who showed me
what a good military leader was. He modelled respect and
integrity, pushed personal and professional development and
mentorship, encouraged ingenuity, and most of all and most
importantly, he cultivated a culture of accountability.
I worked hand in hand with high-level commanders, law
enforcement, and air crews, was responsible for briefing
complex attacks, highly sensitive analysis, and recommending
courses of action. In addition to this extremely demanding,
high-stakes job during a high operations tempo--at the time it
was ranked number one for suicides--my military service as a
queer woman of color was marked by several additional issues.
Throughout my military career, sexual violence, harassment, and
gendered hostility were and remain part and parcel to military
service. In addition to seeing and supporting peers who had
been raped or intervening in various near-rape encounters, I
myself experienced assault multiple times. One assault was a
homophobic retaliation by an airman who resented I would not
return their advances.
The feeling of being preyed upon and undermined from within
made an already challenging role even harder. Despite the
military's pluralism, the Armed Forces personnel management and
policies failed to recognize and modernize to the needs and
long-term wellness of its diverse force. Personnel policies
that touch on health, physical fitness, career development,
naturalization, inclusive service, and family planning are
broken and biased against women, parents, people of color, and
LGBTQ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer] service
members and set us up for failure. Standards set by and for
white men as the default starting point fails to see the whole
force picture, and we know that it results in terrible uniforms
and gear designed for women, dysfunctional promotion pipelines,
body dysmorphia, eating disorders, depression, misdiagnosed
women's health issues, to name a few.
The foremost reason I left Active Duty was the issue of
unchecked toxic leadership and the culture of impunity and lack
of oversight that enables them. One bad leadership transition
is all it took for my unit, which was once known for top
excellence, to become rife with fraud, waste, abuse. I was a
target for outright racial and sexist discrimination and
retaliation. I saw junior officers' performance reports and
careers held hostage to dissuade them from intervening or
whistleblowing.
Most importantly, functional and trusted mechanisms to
meaningfully defend or protect myself felt scarce. Over the
course of my career, I saw significant brain drain of the best
leaders decisively leaving in large part because of the high
tolerance for corruptive behavior, especially at the highest
echelons.
In the end, it is irresponsible to rely on targeted
recruitment of people of color, women, and working-class people
as prospective enlistees into an enterprise that cannot offer
the most basic workplace accountability, securities, and
retention.
Timely and related, a more diverse military does not solve
our retention problem, that service members are burned out by
endless deployments, costly training and taxing personal and
familial hardships, for questionable, never-ending wars. This
is an increasingly growing sentiment as training accidents
continue, lives are lost, suicide rates have not substantively
gone down, and moral injury grows.
In addition to urgent action towards military justice
reform, research sanctioned by Congress that specifically
surveys minority groups is vital. Specific objectives around
enlisted women with distributed race representation across
branches, transgender, and gender non-conforming troops that
are currently in and have been discharged within the last 5
years, troops of color, and religious minorities is vital to
get direct insights and assess the scope and scale of
structural and cultural gaps.
More assertively partnering with our allies, mil-to-mil
contact with Australia, Canada, and Great Britain and their own
research design which I would say is more advanced than ours
and work around these problems, is essential.
I was encouraged several times to commission in the United
States Air Force by ranking officers I deeply admired. I joined
the Reserves specifically wanting to make a change from the
inside, even if it was in a small part. And although it was a
more safe and healthy environment thanks to a masterful
intelligence commander, with much sadness, I realized that I
had outgrown the institutional and cultural limitations and had
to continue my service to my country in a different capacity.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I look forward to
your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Campos-Palma can be found in
the Appendix on page 94.]
Ms. Speier. Thank you.
Mr. Garrison.
STATEMENT OF BISHOP GARRISON, FORMER U.S. ARMY OFFICER
Mr. Garrison. Chairwoman Speier, Ranking Member Kelly,
distinguished members of this committee, thank you for holding
this hearing and for the opportunity to provide this testimony.
In the early morning of September 11, 2001, I walked out of
my national security law seminar with a close friend and fellow
West Point cadet. As we turned the corner, we came across a
young instructor, a major, who was transfixed by footage
displayed on his projector. Inexplicably, a jetliner had
crashed into a tower in the financial district of Manhattan.
The World Trade Center, he told us. We were dumbfounded. How
could such a horrific accident take place? Then, together, we
watched as the second plane crashed into the South Tower,
erupting into flames. The major glanced over his shoulder in
our direction and then back to the screen. Well, gentlemen, he
told us, it looks like we are going to war.
We graduated June 1 of the following year, 2002. By
February of 2003, I was in the Anbar Province of Iraq for my
first of two deployments. But I was no stranger to service. My
mother was a career educator in South Carolina, and my father,
who was drafted and received a Bronze Star in connection with
his service in Vietnam, spent his career helping veterans find
work through the South Carolina Department of Employment and
Workforce.
Notwithstanding their upbringing in a segregated South,
they always stressed the importance of giving back to both
community and to our country. But when my father was recruited
to attend Officer Candidate School, he declined. Though he
excelled in the military--men from his First Cavalry Unit, all
white, have reached out to me to praise him over the years--my
father saw an Army with leadership that did not seem to value
men of color equally.
Although the military has made remarkable strides toward a
true meritocracy since my father's era, serious problems
linger. I am immensely grateful for the opportunities my
military service provided. I would not be sitting before this
committee today had it not been for what I learned and achieved
in the military. My appreciation and love for this service is,
in fact, why I believe it is so important for this committee to
engage in this discussion. But had I been afforded more direct
mentorship and more examples of leaders who reflected my own
life experiences, I would have been more likely to remain a
member in the Army. Like my father a half century before me, I
decided to seek out other ways to continue serving my community
and my country.
Before addressing the challenges we face and potential
solutions, I would like to establish why diversity of our
military forces matters. First, it fosters cohesion. A report
from Cornell University states that some studies have found
that higher overall levels of cohesion are associated with
individual benefits of increased job satisfaction, retention,
and better discipline outcomes. This suggests that promoting
inclusivity and respect within the ranks is not only the right
thing to do morally but also a matter of national security. A
more cohesive unit is a stronger fighting force.
Moreover, in order to address a diverse set of threats
across the globe, we must strive to include a diverse set of
life experiences and perspectives. The young female
intelligence analyst from Oakland will view the world through a
different lens than her male counterpart from Biloxi or from
her older leader from Santa Fe, and this diversity helps
overcome groupthink or tunnel vision which, in war, can prove
fatal.
It is also important to note that some of the current
discourse in American society and some of the current
administration's policies could be affecting interest in
serving, especially among minorities. The militarization of our
Nation's southern border, the deportation of veterans, the
potential rescission of the Parole in Place program, tenuous
status of Dreamer service members and veterans, the transgender
service ban, the fact that many major military installations
are still named for Confederate leaders, the ongoing worries
about white nationalism in the military's ranks, and the fact
that an individual who holds extreme views on race continues to
serve at the highest level of immigration policymaking. These
factors risk causing a detrimental impact on our military's
ability to recruit and retain new and diverse talent.
While this issue is admittedly complex, congressional
action can play a stabilizing role. I welcome the opportunity
to discuss concrete suggestions today or can provide them at a
later date. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Garrison can be found in the
Appendix on page 103.]
Ms. Speier. Thank you, Mr. Garrison. I am going to yield my
5 minutes to Ms. Escobar because she has to leave to go to
Judiciary.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and to our
panelists. I cannot tell you how powerful your statements and
your testimony have been, and I am grateful that leadership is
in the audience to listen to this. You have gone through a long
list of, really, challenges that are so significant, it is
almost impossible to know where to begin.
Beginning with Ms. Williams, what you described as
cumulative indignities, and Ms. Campos-Palma, the repeated
sexual assaults and attacks that you described. Mr. Garrison,
you are absolutely right. When we allow racism space in our
country, we shouldn't be shocked that it takes root within our
institutions and becomes an obstacle to embracing and
celebrating diversity.
And so I feel as though the questions that I was thinking
through are so not appropriate in that the challenge is greater
than I think we even realize. But to try to get to the root of
this, and to try to begin to carve out a path for solving this
tremendous challenge that we have as a country within our ranks
and within our military, I want to ask you about the culture.
And if each one of you could just very briefly tell me,
when there were complaints, when you sounded the alarm, when
you shared the information with your peers and with your
leaders, were you met with sympathetic, compassionate ears, and
leadership that said I am going to go out on a limb to protect
you? Did that happen, or what actually did happen when you
sounded the alarm?
Ms. Williams. When I filed complaints, no appropriate
action was taken, or if it was taken, I was never made aware of
it. That led to me not continuing to raise my voice and to
instead try to find other ways to deal with situations
informally which still could lead to peer retaliation. And I
definitely did have some leaders who were willing to back their
folks. Unfortunately, it was not universal, and the pressure
from peers to be silent was also very strong.
I want to say that I do believe that rigorous and sustained
efforts at culture change can work if it is coupled with
accountability. To give an example of why I believe that, look
at the rates of drug use within the military compared to
civilian culture. Illicit drug use among military personnel is
.7 percent compared to 16.6 percent of U.S. adults. If rates of
sexual misconduct are anything similar within the military to
civilian society, it shows that it is not taken as seriously.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you.
Ms. Campos-Palma. It is an interesting question because I
don't know that it is just about willingness. I also think it
is about capacity and power dynamics. I think in such a
hierarchal institution, it is really difficult, and I think
also an institution that is constantly doing life and death
missions, work, operations. Prioritizing where we put our
capital, as leaders, where we put time was always something
that I felt really conflicted by. I would ask when I
experienced things that--I think we are trained to say this
doesn't feel right. This doesn't feel right. This doesn't feel
in alignment with our core values. It would also be don't rock
the boat, right. The mantra. Shut up and color. I never
understood it. It is in direct contradiction of our first core
value in the Air Force, integrity first.
And so what I found was incredible officers and NCOs that
wanted to help, but in my case, as I mentioned, when they did
try to step up, it was not convenient. They then were at risk.
And I think it is even worse for enlisted forces, right.
And so I think that genuinely we are trained to want to do
the right thing, but I think that--and this is different
between the branches from my understanding with peers, but
there is a culture of not wanting to rock the boat and, thus,
not wanting to step in front, right. Don't be the first, and
don't be the last.
And so I think that that is one of the biggest things we
need to change is to reward people. Where are the rewards for
whistleblowers? Where are the rewards for people that are
saying, you know, assault and rape of my peers in my unit is
not good? I know too many who have been punished for doing the
right thing.
Ms. Escobar. And this will have to be really quickly
because I am out of time.
Mr. Garrison. I will make it as fast as I can,
Congresswoman.
For me, the biggest thing was when I did have leaders that
wanted to address me and wanted to help, culturally, they
simply did not know how. And when you talk about--I served my
time in the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment; I was ``Brave
Rifles.'' And within the officer corps at the time, you look
across a unit of thousands of men, dozens of officers, and you
see three African Americans.
So it is really hard culturally to understand my life
experience and to be able to connect and engage with me in a
way that is going to be meaningful and actually have the proper
impact.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you all for your
voices.
Ms. Speier. Ranking Member Kelly.
Mr. Kelly of Mississippi. Thank you, Chairwoman. It is an
All-Volunteer Force, and so I will tell you this. I come from
Mississippi. I think there is nobody here who will say there
haven't been some racial issues in my State, but I didn't make
them better by leaving the State, okay. I was able to see one
of my mentors, General Leon Collins, who was the first African-
American commander of the 155 BCT [Brigade Combat Team] as a
brigadier general, the first African-American officer in the
Mississippi Army National Guard, and I went to war with him.
What a great leader, but he stayed there because he fought
through all the things that happened at my alma mater, Ole
Miss, the James Meredith being admitted, all of those things,
he fought through those and persevered so that he could be that
example for all the other African Americans that followed.
The same thing happens with females. We have to have strong
people. So as a brigade commander in the 168th Engineer
Brigade, I had the first woman battalion commander who served--
me as a brigade commander, and she was a battalion commander.
That was not that long ago. I had an African-American battalion
commander my entire staff, but I fixed that by being there.
They fixed that by being the next generation, because now there
is no excuse.
As brigade commander, I was followed by the first two
African-American brigade commanders who followed me, one who is
still in command or people who I hope that I am a mentor to.
So my question is, Mr. Garrison, especially to you because
I respect you so much and your father, okay. But we can't fix
it--we need guys like you to be there right now so that you can
be a GO. But you know what? You are not there, so what do we do
to make sure that the Garrisons and the Campos-Palmas and the
Williams, what do we do to make sure you guys become the role
models for the next generations of leaders, the ones who will
carry that mantra and be that next African-American brigadier
general or four-star general or the next female or Latino or
whatever. How do we do that?
Mr. Garrison. Sure. Thank you, Congressman. First and
foremost, I appreciate your words on that, Ranking Member. The
biggest thing I would say is that we have to keep in mind we do
not make these decisions and policies in a vacuum. We are a
Nation that has been at war for nearly two decades now.
By the time I finished my second deployment, I had been
deployed for 2 years out of roughly about 34 months. So out of
the 36 months total, I was gone in Iraq during that time. So
that takes a toll. We are at a point now where we are looking
at members who have--service members who have been on multiple
deployments, who have been gone five, six, seven times.
Not to take away from any potential service that has
happened in the past or between wars previously, but it is a
different dynamic that we are working with that this Nation has
not dealt with previously. So that is the first thing.
The second thing is as I mentioned before, some of the
societal effects that we are seeing in domestic policy and in
our Nation are having an effect on interest of young people to
serve. There was a report done recently by the National Defense
University that said 73 percent of African Americans in Active
Duty service right now are incredibly proud of their service.
When asked if they would recommend service to a young person,
45 percent said absolutely not. That is a problem that we are
facing right now, and it is a part of this dynamic.
And when we talk about--and some of these things are things
that Congress can affect. We can look at--I would recommend
that Congress take a look at the nominations process and see
how we are actually drawing talent for the academies as well as
looking at demographics for ROTC because it is not just the
academies that we get leadership from. We get it from ROTC as
well. But we have to ensure that whatever policies we put in
place reemphasize the importance of keeping these young junior
military officers in place so they can go through the ranks and
they have those opportunities.
Mr. Kelly of Mississippi. Yeah. And I think part of that
is--I mean, I was in with General Miller today, and his service
stripes, his overseas service stripes were above his elbow
which means he has had more time downrange than he has before,
okay, and that is our senior leaders. I mean, I was gone for 3
years out of 5 at one point in my kids' life; 3 years out of 5,
I was downrange.
And so we all face that, but how do we get African
American, Latino? Is that recruiting HBCU [Historically Black
Colleges and Universities] universities and ROTC in greater
numbers? How do we get greater numbers at the entry level
because until they are at the entry level, we can't get them at
the exit level. And then we have to have people, we have got to
figure out what it makes--what it does to keep them to stay to
be a senior officer. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Campos-Palma. I think that we--I find it interesting
that in your question and even in the last panel, there seems
to be this focus on bringing people in. If they don't have
mentors and solid--if the people that are going to be their
commanders, their supervisors, their wing commanders are not
stable, then we are setting them up for failure. So I think
that is first.
I would also say the last time I went up before a
commissioning board, we were asked if you become an officer of
the United States Air Force, what is the single issue that you
want to tackle? The person I was going up against said fitness.
My answer was I would eradicate sexual violence in our military
because at the time, we had just had three colonels convicted
for--well, not convicted. They were found inappropriate
behavior. They weren't convicted.
And they had a female colonel speak to me afterwards to ask
me if I had something to share, if I was okay, is everything
all right. And I said why? And they said, well, the board found
your answer a little concerning. And so I think that the way
that we measure and define strength, progress, success, is
really important more than ever. So when you say that we need
strong leaders, I am curious what that is.
And I will just finish by really quickly saying that
hearing the last panel, I did have some pride in being in the
Air Force. I know we get a lot of jokes, but Colonel Gina
Grosso was one of the great officers that I had the privilege
of serving with. She was the first woman high-ranking general
in personnel in this role, and she warned us about this. She
said, do we need more brawn, or do we need more intellect. We
are going to have to look at a different way of measuring
strength in the military, so that is what I would say.
Mr. Kelly of Mississippi. I agree. And we don't have time.
I have got to yield back, but I do think some of the people
sitting at this table, we need you to stay. And I am saying
that not to you-all but the other people who are out there. We
need you to stay to be tomorrow's senior leaders, to be those
mentors because we can't get mentors without people staying.
With that, I yield back, Chairwoman.
Ms. Speier. Thank you.
Congresswoman Davis.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much. Thank you all for being
here. And you know, it is interesting because as I was sitting
here in the first panel, I really did want to ask what impact
do you believe that the events that we have been through in
this country over the last 20 years, if you will, have really
impacted recruiting, retention, and culture. And obviously
there is a difference in recruitment after 9/11 which, you
know, Mr. Garrison, you brought up as well.
But I just was wondering about the connection. It felt to
me like in some ways, with all due respect to our first panel
that, you know, then it is almost like the reverse. Like, I
would like to know from all of you what the impact of hearing
our witnesses here has been, if any, you know.
Is that a story that you have heard many times over, or is
that something that often you don't have an opportunity to
listen to and to sort of hear about, whether it is toxic
leadership or whether it is a concern about the perception of
where we are in the country in terms of respecting all
individuals. And so I think that, you know, sometimes you want
to go back and forth a little bit and have that discussion.
So let me go to the panel in front of me right now and just
ask. I mean, in addition to what has been said, Mr. Garrison,
you did say you had some ideas for the Congress, and you have
all mentioned this in some way.
Could you elaborate a little bit more on that in terms of
again taking in the discussion that you heard earlier? How can
we connect those stories, that which you bring and also by the
great leadership of our country that has been here as well?
Mr. Garrison. Yes, Congresswoman. I will try to make my
remarks brief so my colleagues can have time to reply as well.
There are two things quickly. There is one thing the
ranking member asked about that I neglected to hit on. I would
say eradicating white nationalism within our ranks has to be of
paramount importance. It is something that is affecting the
discipline of our units, and it is something that is going to
continue to affect the recruitment and retention of our talent
pools.
The other thing that I noted, particularly from the Army G-
1 [Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel], from General Seamands.
He mentioned that focusing on the urban areas, 24 different--
excuse me--22 different cities and the Warrior Program, I think
those are great tools, but those are a part of the process. My
question is when you are going to those cities, what is the
content? How are you designing these programs in a way that
will best affect the maximum--ensure that you have the maximum
outcomes that you need in order to bring these young recruits
in. And I think the process is incredibly important, but we
have to continue to review what content, how are we designing
these programs to actually engage with these young people.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Ms. Campos-Palma. I am very interested in the contradiction
that a warrior class that is so trained in high levels of
discipline, there is a disconnect there. Like, who gets
disciplined I think is really important. We were having a
conversation earlier. I think it is imperative if we allow
people to get away with toxic leadership, abuse, corruption in
the military, it sets the standard, and in my opinion, it is
the standard. Story after story that comes out of some person
abusing their power in the military. Our institution of
discipline, of strategy, says to everyone that we are
illegitimate, and how can we even be trusted?
And so the military currently is the most trusted
institution in our country. I think that we have a big threat
of losing that if we do not make examples of high-level
offenders, and it doesn't have to be outright rape, right. Of
course, and this bleeds over into the veteran community, the
trauma that then transpires within the military ranks and then
outside of it because we are not rooting this out.
But also as in my case, abuse of power. Where is that? And
also good--good models of leadership. I wish that I could tell
you high-level leaders, first shirts [first sergeants], that
are being rewarded in the way that they deserve, and I don't
think that they are.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Ms. Williams. To respond to some of the things that I heard
in the first panel, first, I want to mention that as somebody
who has aged into the influencer demographic, I want to praise
the Navy for a really great ad they have targeting me as the
mother of a daughter. They are doing great. I think the Army's
Warriors Wanted campaign isn't as well suited for the modern
era, and I really hope the next phase highlighting other jobs
is going to be better at attracting a more diverse population.
And then to talk about retention, Lieutenant General Rocco
mentioned the importance of mentoring. And I want to call out
the grave concern that in the era of heavy emphasis on sexual
assault and harassment prevention and then also coupled with
the #MeToo movement in the civilian sector, we have heard both
within the military and in the civilian sector of men being
more reluctant to mentor women because of their fears in this
climate. So how do we combat that so that we have men willing
to mentor the next generation of leaders as women because we
don't have enough women to do all of the mentoring of all of
the rising ranks, so that is an area of concern that I will
raise. Thank you.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Ms. Speier. I must say that all three of you have provided
remarkable testimony. My heart broke a couple of times as I
listened to each of you talk about your experiences. You are
great service members and the fact that you left is a great
stain on our military. And I would hope for all of our chiefs
that are here, thank you so much for staying, I think you can
recognize that there is some strong messages coming from each
of you, and you have to be listened to. There is too much happy
talk, and we need to spend more time drilling down with a
serious discussion about what is wrong and, you know, kind of
face it and address it.
So Ms. Williams and Ms. Campos-Palma, what years were you
in service?
Ms. Williams. I was Active Duty from 2000 to 2005.
Ms. Campos-Palma. I was Active Duty from 2006 to 2010 and a
reservist from 2011 to 2017.
Ms. Speier. I am sorry. And the Reserves between 2010 and
2017, is that what you said?
Ms. Campos-Palma. Correct.
Ms. Speier. You know, I have been working on the issue of
sexual assault in the military now for over 9 years, and when I
hear these stories, I just--I shake my head in disbelief that
we still can't seem--we have spent so much money and given so
much attention to this issue, and I fear that we are not having
the impact we need.
Now, in fairness, you served before we took this issue as
seriously as we do now. I am just wondering to what extent your
experiences are being replicated even now in the military. To
you, Mr. Garrison, I join my colleague, Ranking Member Kelly,
in saying what a loss that you are no longer serving.
I guess my question to each of you is if you were sitting
here as opposed to there, give me three steps that you would
take in terms of dealing with the issue of retention. We didn't
spend as much time in the first panel on retention, but what
are the three steps you would undertake to encourage that we do
not lose talent like each of you represent?
Ms. Williams.
Ms. Williams. Thank you. First, to your question of whether
or not sexual harassment and assault efforts have taken root;
2006, the sexual assault rate of Active Duty women past year
was 6.8 percent, and in 2018, it was 6.2. So I don't see that
as tremendous progress, and please note that the rates are
significantly worse for LGB [lesbian, gay, and bisexual]
service members. That is reflected in my written testimony as
well as DOD's own reports, but please, in terms of
intersectionality, this is of grave concern.
For things that I would encourage, a total scrub of
policies to look for unintended discriminatory effects and to
carefully review DACOWITS' [Defense Advisory Committee on Women
in the Services] well-researched and thoughtful
recommendations. You asked for three, but those are two.
Ms. Speier. Okay. Thank you.
Ms. Campos-Palma.
Ms. Campos-Palma. There was a lot of conversation, I think,
around representation, but we know that representation doesn't
exactly mean leadership, and so I think there needs to be an
analysis around what levels of leadership. People like Colonel
Grosso, did they get to meet their agendas? Did they have real
power to implement changes in policy? So what do the exit
interviews look like for our highest ranking diverse leaders?
Secondly, the military justice system fails us not just for
sexual assault, but as Mr. Garrison mentioned, white
nationalism is a considerable threat. And if I was in right
now, in the units that I am in, I have done this exercise, I
don't know how I would really report that, right, so clarity
and really taking a look at the military justice system.
And I would also say just a fine point on military justice,
who are the people we are willing to lose I think is extremely
important. As he mentioned, simple things like are we
streamlining naturalization processes for citizens in the
military?
Third, our military strategy and identity is in crisis and
is failing our people. I would suggest you look at specific
intelligence career fields that have now shifted to a different
military strategy, different region of the world. Cyber has now
forced us to look at different ways that our military will have
to operate in the future.
And so in this question of are we in the right conflicts,
and are we fighting these conflicts wisely and burning our
people out, missions like the DCGS [Distributed Common Ground
System] mission is a good place where people have started to
say to me personally, you know, I am seeing different patterns.
People aren't as depressed. People aren't as burned out.
There is better life balance. We are going to have to move
though that mission, I think, and so I would urge you to speak
specifically to those individuals who are already starting to
see changes.
Ms. Speier. Thank you.
Mr. Garrison.
Mr. Garrison. Yes, Chairwoman. Thank you. I have already
given you one idea in terms of the white nationalism. Another
thing that I would say is that we do want to be careful of
running the risk of--if you are familiar with the NFL [National
Football League], they had a rule called the Rooney Rule for a
bit where every interview had to include a person of color and
what you ended up seeing is that they would just do the bare
minimum, have that person of color, and then go with whatever
candidate they ultimately wanted to go with.
So the one thing I want to say is that we need to create a
culture in which we are pushing our leaders to ensure that they
are identifying talent, top talent among people of color and
among women and that they understand the importance of
identifying that, and it is not simply to check the box. I am
heartened to hear what the G-1s had to say today.
I think that we are definitely on that arc, moving in that
direction, and we are beginning to see that, but it is
incumbent upon the civilian authorities, Congress, and the
executive to ensure that we hold them accountable and we are
continuing to make sure that that is something they are
ultimately doing.
And we want to create a culture that has true inroads and
rewards those who look to lift up those from vulnerable
communities more often and really look at achieving that
talent.
We have a system right now in which everyone has to meet
the standard. They are not different standards for anyone. And
we have to do everything we can to re-emphasize that and ensure
that our military, the culture, understands that that is the
fact and we want to do everything we can to reward individuals
who meet those standards.
Ms. Speier. All right. Thank you, very very much.
That will conclude our hearing today. There is a lot of
grist for the mill. Your contributions have been extraordinary
and I want to say thank you again for the service you have
provided when you had a uniform on and the service you provided
to us today.
We stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:24 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
December 10, 2019
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
December 10, 2019
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[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING
THE HEARING
December 10, 2019
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RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. SPEIER
General Seamands. Of the three main uniforms worn by Army
personnel, the Female uniforms are approximately $30 less than the
unisex uniforms.
New enlisted personnel are provided an initial issue of Army
personal clothing items, commonly referred to as the ``Clothing Bag''.
The female clothing bag costs $1,573.24; the male clothing bag is
$1,606.61. The difference in cost is because the male Soldier is issued
undergarments; female Soldiers receive a cash allowance to procure the
undergarments that best suit their individual needs.
Female Soldiers receive a $291.75 cash allowance to purchase
undergarments, a handbag, and athletic socks when they first enter the
Army. Male Soldiers receive undergarments as part of their initial
issue and a $7.99 cash allowance to purchase athletic socks.
To maintain the required uniforms and other personal clothing items
during the time of enlistment, Soldiers receive an annual Clothing
Replacement Allowance (CRA). For the first three years of enlistment,
Female Soldiers receive a Basic CRA rate of $322.49 vice the male rate
of $330.41. After three years of service Soldiers receive a Standard
CRA. The Female Standard CRA is $472.01, and the Male Standard CRA is
$460.71. [See page 17.]
Admiral Nowell. On the average, female specific mandatory uniforms
are less expensive than equivalent mandatory male uniforms. The
exception is the female O-4 through O-10 Dinner Dress Jacket Uniform,
which is more than the equivalent male uniform.
Uniform Ensemble--Male Female Uniform Ensembles Cost
E1-E6 Service Uniform $176.23 $158.38
E1-E6 Service Dress Blue $330.89 $321.87
E1-E6 Service Dress White $147.53 $132.88
E7-E9 Service Khaki $317.64 $313.59
E7-E9 Summer White $282.17 $282.17
E7-E9 Service Dress Blue $562.28 $550.87
E7-E9 Service Dress White $422.77 $422.51
E7-E9 Prescribable Outerwear $230.39 $224.81
WO-O10 Service Khaki $321.22 $317.17
WO-O10 Summer White $302.64 $302.64
WO-O10 Service Dress Blue $550.79 $539.38
WO-O10 Service Dress White $469.84 $469.58
O4-O10 Dinner Dress Blue Jacket $465.55 $465.68
O4-O10 Dinner Dress White Jacket $483.10 $428.27
WO-O10 Prescribable Outerwear $424.11 $424.11
[See page 17.]
General Kelly. [Answer in original form retained in committee
files.] [See page 17.]
General Rocco. All items have a useful life, and some are longer
than others. For example, all Marines are required to own the $100 All
Weather Coat, but the coat generally lasts for a Marine's whole career
and is rarely ever replaced. The same can be said for many of the items
Marines are required to maintain (e.g. blue dress coat, service coat,
duffel bag . . .). New officers incur a $600(+) upfront cost to
purchase the officer sword and accessories; it too is considered a one-
time purchase item. Some items wear out more quickly than others (e.g.
footwear, socks, undershirts) and have to be replaced more frequently.
There is really no way to determine how much a Marine is spending
annually on uniforms, as Marines replace their uniforms as needed based
on their individual wear patterns.
An annual clothing replacement allowance (CRA) is paid to Active
Duty enlisted Marines, based on the item cost divided by the useful
life of each required item. Officers receive a one-time cash payment of
$400 upon commissioning for the purchase of uniforms. Warrant officers
do not receive a CRA once promoted to the officer ranks, but do receive
the $400 upon commissioning.
Some items are available commercially and via the Defense Logistics
Agency (DLA). The DLA price will always be less expensive. Officers,
for a lot of items, have the option to buy the DLA item, but many
purchase their uniforms as packages from commercial entities, and the
price is often higher. Many officers and SNCOs prefer the more
expensive/higher quality commercial item, but for the purposes of this
comparison, when possible, the DLA prices were used.
Marine Corps Warrant Officers (WO-CWO5) are considered company
grade officers.
Because they came up through the enlisted ranks, most only replace
their enlisted uniforms with officer uniform items when there is a
design difference (size of the ornamental stripe on the slacks, the
braid on the frame cap, pockets on the male service coat, lack of red
piping on the blue dress coats, necktie clasp . . .). So even though
their cost comparison is the same as the company grade officer, while
they had some up front expense with the transition to warrant officer,
they in fact did not have to purchase a whole new wardrobe they became
officers.
The Marine Corps is currently in the process of transitioning to
the more expensive Female Blue Dress Coat (FDBC), but won't complete
the transition until October 2022. For this comparison, the more
expensive FDBC was used. The cost of the new enlisted FDBC/white belt/
waistplate is $180.94. The cost of the old enlisted Women's blue dress
coat and white shirt was $156.40. The cost of the new officer FDBC
(with the white strip collar) is $384, while the old coat/white shirt/
red necktab was $346.50.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[See page 17.]
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
December 10, 2019
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. SPEIER
Ms. Speier. Does your service research how the traits you look for
in recruits and retention correlate with success throughout a service
member's military career? Please share any such research. Have you
tested whether other traits correlate with success?
General Seamands. Our personnel research organization
longitudinally tracks recruits up to their first 10 years of service to
examine how well their cognitive, noncognitive (e.g., motivation), and
physical attributes are related to success at multiple points in a
career. In addition to looking at retention, they examine how these
attributes relate to training success, performance in the first term of
service (enlisted) or the active duty service obligation (officers),
and performance as Noncommissioned Officers or Field Grade Officers.
The research has found that attributes in each of the categories are
statistically related to later success and, when considered in
combination, are even better indicators of success. The researchers
continually investigate attributes that may contribute to success and
integrate the promising attributes into the existing assessments. With
the fielding of the Integrated Pay and Personnel System-Army (IPPS-A),
we will capture data to include a list of 25+ knowledge, skills, and
behaviors and be able to track throughout the Soldier's career to
facilitate research.
Ms. Speier. Do your services have research groups equivalent to the
Marine Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning? What projects
have they completed within the last three years? What are they
currently working on?
General Seamands. The Army has an organization with a similar,
though not exact, mission to that of the Marine Center for Advance
Operational Culture Learning. The Cultural and Areas Studies Office
(CASO) as part of the Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC), in
conjunction with partner organizations, provides a mechanism to engage
all CGSC constituencies concerning the importance of cultural,
political, economic, and social factors in shaping the operational
environment.
CASO has worked on several projects, with various diverse academic
panels, over the last three years including:
25 Sep 2019--``Cultural and `Soft Power' Influences of China,
Russia, and France in Africa.''
21 May 2019--``Leveraging Culture and Language in `Influence'
Operations.''
28 March 2019--``Cultural and `Soft Power' Influences of China and
Russi+a in the Americas.''
14 January 2019--``Cultural and `Soft Power' Influences of Iran and
Russia in Syria.''
30 April 2018--``Cultural Perspectives, Geopolitics, and Energy
Security of the Koreas.''
12 September 2017--``Cultural and Regional Implications of Russian
Power Projection in the `Grey Zone.''
CASO published an anthology of essays by panelists, speakers, and
members of the CGSC faculty on ``Cultural Perspectives, Geopolitics &
Energy Security of Eurasia: Is the Next Global Conflict Imminent? (Fort
Leavenworth, KS: CGSC Press, 2017).
CASO is currently working jointly with the National Intelligence
Council and The American Enterprise Institute on a presentation,
``Cultural Dynamics of U.S.- Iran Relations: Is Conflict Imminent?''
scheduled for Thursday, 23 January, 2020, 1-3 p.m. (CST).
CASO is completing the second, expanded volume of the anthology
with leading scholars from CGSC and across the nation in support of
U.S. National Security and Defense Strategy to be published this year.
It focuses on ``Cultural Perspectives, Geopolitics & Energy Security:
Competition for Influence in Eurasia, the Americas and Africa,'' adding
two more strategically important regions and authors/scholars across
the nation with related areas of expertise.
Ms. Speier. Please provide the gender and ethnicity of recruiters
across the services and in any higher DOD headquarters activity that is
related to recruiting activities.
General Seamands. The breakout by gender and ethnicity for Army
active and Army reserve recruiters is as follows:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Female Male Total
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Asian 87 516 603
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Black 594 1866 2460
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Caucasian 304 5427 5731
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hispanic 205 1746 1951
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other 35 155 190
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 1225 9710 10935
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ms. Speier. Please provide the average cost of female uniforms
compared to male uniforms.
General Seamands. New enlisted personnel are provided an initial
issue of Army personal clothing items, commonly referred to as the
Clothing Bag. In fiscal year 2020, the female clothing bag cost is
$1,573.24; the male clothing bag cost is $1,606.61. The difference in
cost is because male Soldiers are issued undergarments and female
Soldiers receive a $291.75 cash allowance to purchase undergarments
that best suit their individual needs, a handbag, and athletic socks.
The average cost of the Female Army Combat Uniform (ACU) is $97.54.
The unisex ACU is $98.07. The Female Army Service Uniform (ASU) is
$432.88 compared to the male uniform at $439.72. The Female Army
Physical Fitness Uniform (APFU) is $112.61 and the unisex APFU is
$113.13.
Ms. Speier. Does your service research how the traits you look for
in recruits and retention correlate with success throughout a service
member's military career? Please share any such research. Have you
tested whether other traits correlate with success?
Admiral Nowell. Yes, Navy researches identifiable personnel traits
which are correlated with positive outcomes such as completing
enlistment contracts, reenlistments, and future career progression.
From a recruiting perspective, Navy leverages the Armed Services
Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), physical fitness test scores, and
types of waivers granted (medical or conduct related) as some of the
preliminary indicators of completing an initial enlistment. Navy
employs the Rating Identification Engine (RIDE) program correlating
individual's ASVAB scores to specific Navy jobs for which the applicant
has aptitude. Navy also uses Job Opportunities In the Navy (JOIN), a
non-cognitive and culturally fair assessment of each applicant's
interest in specific Navy career fields. RIDE and JOIN align the
aptitudes and interests of prospective Sailors and research shows JOIN
scores are significantly related to key career outcomes such as lower
first term attrition, higher reenlistments, and increased likelihood of
promotion to E-6 after 9 years. Army is launching a 3-year pilot to
assess the effectiveness of Tailored Adaptive Personality Assessment
System (TAPAS) for operational use. TAPAS is a non-cognitive
assessment, and preliminary research suggests that TAPAS may provide
small but consistent improvements in the ability to predict future
attrition. Navy is collecting and sharing information with Army, and
TAPAS may potentially augment ASVAB, RIDE, and JOIN in the future as
tools for selection and classification of military recruits. Navy has 7
studies from the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) focusing on internal
Navy factors which can impact reenlistment. It is important to note
that there are external factors beyond Navy's control, which can also
influence an individual's reenlistment decision. These include overall
unemployment or world events like the 9/11 attacks. Additionally, there
are 32 CNA studies which focus only on external factors or a
combination of internal and external factors. Navy continuously
examines results of personnel policies, including promotions and
advancements, to identify positive trends and commonalities to assist
Sailors in achieving success in their career and to avoid any
unintended or undue bias in Navy's policies and processes including
recruitment, retention, or promotion with regard to gender, racial, or
ethnic diversity.
Ms. Speier. Do your services have research groups equivalent to the
Marine Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning? What projects
have they completed within the last three years? What are they
currently working on?
Admiral Nowell. The Center for Language, Regional Expertise, and
Culture (CLREC) in Pensacola, Florida is Navy's equivalent for
developing and providing operationally relevant education and training
resources for Fleet use. Over the last three years, CLREC has created a
number of informative cultural training products formatted as
electronic courses, PowerPoint presentations, and narrated videos with
learning objectives aligned to Department of Defense and Navy doctrine
and instructions. To ensure accuracy, content is developed under
contract with academic institutions. CLREC is expanding access to its
products via Navy's Global Deployer Application for mobile devices.
Sailors completing culture training via this application are awarded
credit in Navy training databases, and CLREC provides language-learning
material to individuals and resources language classes for Sailors at
fleet concentration centers in Japan, Korea, Italy, Spain, and Bahrain.
In 2020, Arabic and French programs will be established in Djibouti.
Additionally, CLREC has access to other research resources, such as the
Center for Naval Analyses, which it contracted to conduct a study,
scheduled to publish in 2020, of Russian-Chinese Maritime Cooperation
in the Indo-Pacific Area of Operations. By optimizing access to culture
material and language learning, CLREC ensures Navy has access to
resources required for mission support.
Ms. Speier. Please provide the gender and ethnicity of recruiters
across the services and in any higher DOD headquarters activity that is
related to recruiting activities
Admiral Nowell. The table below displays the fiscal year 2019
demographic makeup of Navy Recruiting Command by gender and ethnicity.
Diversity FY19 EnlistedAC (%)RC (%) African-American:21.527.2
Asian-Pacific Islander:10.012.4 Hispanic:18.319.8 Female:24.434.3
OfficerAC (%)RC (%) African-American:10.07.8 Asian-Pacific
Islander:15.212.5 Hispanic:12.07.7 Female:25.923.9
Ms. Speier. Please provide the average cost of female uniforms
compared to male uniforms.
Admiral Nowell. On the average, female specific mandatory uniforms
are less expensive than equivalent mandatory male uniforms. The
exception is the female O-4 through O-10 Dinner Dress Jacket Uniform,
which is more than the equivalent male uniform.
Uniform Ensemble--Male Female Uniform Ensembles Cost
E1-E6 Service Uniform $176.23 $158.38
E1-E6 Service Dress Blue $330.89 $321.87
E1-E6 Service Dress White $147.53 $132.88
E7-E9 Service Khaki $317.64 $313.59
E7-E9 Summer White $282.17 $282.17
E7-E9 Service Dress Blue $562.28 $550.87
E7-E9 Service Dress White $422.77 $422.51
E7-E9 Prescribable Outerwear $230.39 $224.81
WO-O10 Service Khaki $321.22 $317.17
WO-O10 Summer White $302.64 $302.64
WO-O10 Service Dress Blue $550.79 $539.38
WO-O10 Service Dress White $469.84 $469.58 O4
O4-O10 Dinner Dress Blue Jacket $465.55 $465.68
O4-O10 Dinner Dress White Jacket $483.10 $428.27
WO-O10 Prescribable Outerwear $424.11 $424.11
Ms. Speier. Does your service research how the traits you look for
in recruits and retention correlate with success throughout a service
member's military career? Please share any such research. Have you
tested whether other traits correlate with success?
General Kelly. Although the Air Force does not research how the
traits we look for in recruits and retention correlate with success
throughout a service member's military career, we successfully
accomplish personality trait research tied to training outcomes (e.g.,
attrition, course and leadership grades, order of merit). The Air Force
uses the DOD-administered Tailored Adaptive Personality Assessment
System (TAPAS) v5 for enlisted accessions, and has a second test in
development, the Self-Description Inventory (SDI; see DTIC ADA364039),
that is included in the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test (AFOQT). The
SDI will be validated against Air Force officer job performance as part
of the AFOQT validation to be completed by 2023. Both tests utilize the
5-factor model of personality as their base (Openness to Experience,
Contentiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism).
Personality trait research includes the following:
PERFORMANCE OUTCOMES Barron, Carretta, & Bonto-Kane (2016) found
pre-accession assessment of personality a significant predictor of
Officer Performance Reports rank-order of officers (stratification)
(see DTIC AD1024062). This was followed-up with a report on manned and
unmanned aircraft pilots in 2016 with similar findings (see DTIC
ADA631777).
RETENTION/ATTRITION Maury, Stone, Carretta (2010) found weak but
significant effects of pre-accession assessment of personality on re-
enlistment decisions at 4 and 8 years, with current biodata measures
(marital status, number of dependents and enlisted grade) showing
stronger relationships than personality (see DTIC ADA520666).
TRAINING OUTCOMES Rose, Manley & Weissmuller (2013) demonstrated
that TAPAS facets, along with Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery
(ASVAB) and physical ability, predicted completion of training for
Special Warfare trainees (link: TAPAS is currently included in the
selection model for SW enlisted career fields (see DTIC AD1007586). A
2014 cross-service study demonstrated that facets of the SDI had small
but significant effects on Remotely Piloted Aircraft training
performance and academic grades (see DTIC ADA613545), An unpublished
AFPC study (Barron et al, 2014) demonstrated that SDI facets had
significant effects on leadership grades and order of merit in samples
from Officer Training School and the US Air Force Academy. A 2016 study
(Manley, Schwartz, & Weissmller, 2016) demonstrated that several SDI
facets significantly predicted 17D Cyber officer technical training
performance and attrition (see DTIC AD1007590) We have not tested other
traits; however, we abide by DOD's successful first term enlisted
quality benchmark indicators for accessions. The qualitative
distribution benchmarks for accessions within a fiscal year are 60
percent Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) Category I-IIIA and 90
percent high school diploma graduates.
Ms. Speier. Do your services have research groups equivalent to the
Marine Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning? What projects
have they completed within the last three years? What are they
currently working on?
General Kelly. (1) Yes, the Air Force has the Air Force Culture and
Language Center (AFCLC) at Air University, located at Maxwell Air Force
Base, Alabama. In addition to the AFCLC, the Air Force Expeditionary
Center at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey and the Air
Force Special Operations University at Hurlburt Field, Florida, conduct
courses in Cross-Cultural Communication.
(2) The Air Force Culture and Language Center has several programs
enabling the Air Force to further cultural competence, global
perspective, and an acumen for diversity as it applies to operations.
The Language Enabled Airman Program (LEAP) has grown in
the past three years, from approximately 2,000 scholars to 3,253.
Current inventory consists of 95 languages, with overseas immersions
conducted in 86 countries. In 2019, the University of Maryland
conducted an Air Force-sponsored research effort to determine overall
effectiveness of LEAP and determined that LEAP is achieving comparable
results with many Department of Defense and civilian full-time resident
language programs with under one-third the contact time. Lastly, 736
special experience identifiers (SEIs) have been awarded through the
program.
The Foreign Area Officer (FAO) Pipeline Qualification
Training program managed in-region and strategic engagement training
for 198 FAOs. It provided sustainment for 121 FAOs through its on-line
platform and planned 233 overseas sustainment immersions.
In addressing education needs, the Center faculty has
grown from four to seven PhD faculty members. It provided undergraduate
education through the conduct of two associate-level courses as part of
the Community College of the Air Force, with 948 completions. At the
graduate level, the faculty teaches core and elective courses at Air
War College and Air Command & Staff College. The Center prepares
general officers for key leader engagements with senior political,
military, and tribal leaders overseas.
The Center also produces Expeditionary Culture Field
Guides; over the past 3 years, AFCLC has produced 16 guides for a total
of 60 since 2006. It developed a mobile phone app which was recognized
in an August 2018 edition of the Wall Street Journal as the #1
selection of ``The 6 Indispensable Apps for Business Travelers.''
The Center teaches cross-cultural communication twice a
year for UN Military Observer Missions.
(3) Presently, the Language Enabled Airman Program (LEAP) is
building cohorts for an experiment in developing skills in African
languages using Airmen from LEAP as well as Reserve, Air National
Guard, and active duty Airmen who are not part of LEAP. Part of this
experiment will be testing the online learning platform as a
contingency response model in addition to deliberate development. In
education efforts, the Center will be expanding general officer
immersions for the Central Command, Africa Command, and Pacific Command
areas of responsibility. The Center will continue teaching leadership
for cultural property protection through exercises and developing
curriculum for intelligence officer qualifications. They are
investigating development of a monthly podcast on cultural topics, and
have developed a new pre-assignment course for Air Force Office of
Special Investigations agents. Upcoming research projects include the
topics of cultural property protection, working with tribal cultures,
interagency cooperation, corruption in cultural context, gender in Arab
Muslim communities, radicalism and extremism, communication for
leaders, and colonial powers in East Asia.
Ms. Speier. Please provide the gender and ethnicity of recruiters
across the services and in any higher DOD headquarters activity that is
related to recruiting activities.
General Kelly. [Answer in original form retained in committee
files.]
Ms. Speier. Please provide the average cost of female uniforms
compared to male uniforms.
General Kelly. [Answer in original form retained in committee
files.]
Ms. Speier. Does your service research how the traits you look for
in recruits and retention correlate with success throughout a service
member's military career? Please share any such research. Have you
tested whether other traits correlate with success?
General Rocco. Yes, the service is conducting ongoing research to
understand how the various recruitment traits (Armed Services
Vocational Aptitude Battery Scores, Initial Strength Tests, educational
levels etc.) lead to the successful completion of various career
milestones. Beginning in the summer of 2018, the Marine Corps
implemented the Tailored Adaptive Personality Assessment System (TAPAS)
for enlisted applicants. TAPAS is a non-cognitive personality
assessment that tests various personality traits/facets. The Marine
Corps expects to see a correlation between personality facet, cognitive
metrics, and physical fitness capabilities that help to better
understand a Marine's success at the various milestones throughout the
Human Resources Development Process (HRDP). Our research into this area
is relatively new and still in progress but should yield more formal
results by approximately FY23. All Marine Corps efforts in this area
are synchronized with similar Secretary of Defense Accession Policy
initiatives.
Ms. Speier. What projects is the Marine Center for Advanced
Operational Culture Learning currently working on? What projects has it
recently completed? How have its staffing levels changed since the
release of the report on gender issues in the Marines? Why have those
levels changed?
General Rocco. CAOCL's Organization and Role The Center for
Advanced Operational Culture Learning (CAOCL) was created to serve as
the Marine Corps' central organization for language, regional
expertise, and culture (LREC) training, education, and
institutionalization. In doing so, CAOCL has equipped Marines to
understand the motivations and behaviors of adversaries, partners, and
noncombatant populations, enabling Marines to operate effectively in
culturally complex environments. CAOCL has achieved this mission
synergistically through five core functions, including mission
essential LREC training, distance and resident Professional Military
Education (PME), support to operating/deployed units,
institutionalization of LREC capability, and a social science research
capability. CAOCL's small, multidisciplinary team of social scientists,
the Translational Research Group (TRG), was established to support
CAOCL's LREC mission and provide research and advising on topics of
interest to the Marine Corps.
CAOCL's Past and Present Projects
-- CAOCL continuously tailors pre-deployment training for COCOMs,
Task Force Southwest (Afghanistan), and multiple deployed forces.
CAOCL's latest courses include the Cognitive Dimension of Key
Adversaries and LREC in Planning. These courses increase Marines'
lethality and survivability by understanding how culture influences the
adversary's intent, motivation, and ethical constraints in developing
and employing future warfighting tactics and technologies.
-- To complement training, CAOCL developed an accredited total
force, career-long regional and culture distance education program
updated on a two-year cycle to provide a foundation of knowledge for
Marines to incorporate LREC into planning, make informed decisions in
foreign environments, and understand second and third order
consequences of operations. At present, the training audience is 56,000
Marines. Additionally, portions of CAOCL's Regional and Culture Studies
are utilized by both the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare
Center and School and the Defense Institute of Security Cooperation
Studies.
-- CAOCL, responding to the need for managing various biases
associated with an increasingly diverse force and complex operations,
developed courses devoted to instilling cross-cultural competence and
identifying and mitigating biases for the individual Marine. These
courses improved Marines' self-awareness and provided tools to improve
objectivity through education on perception checking, attributional
complexity, and cultural perspective taking. Currently, these courses
are taught throughout residence formal schools. These periods of
instruction have been well-received throughout the Services and have
formally been incorporated into the Marine Corps' Uniformed Victim
Advocate Program.
-- In mid-2017, after misconduct was discovered in social media
groups such as Marines United, Manpower and Reserve Affairs (M&RA)
requested that CAOCL's research group conduct research on Marine
perspectives on the Marine Corps' culture. The intent of the project
was to inform discussions about policy and programs and shape any
future quantitative data gathering efforts.
-- CAOCL's research group has reduced its original analytic plans
for the MCOCR Project. Thus far, the research group has produced two
additional reports from the project, one on concepts of equality and
one on pregnancy loss. The group currently is focused on a small number
of additional analyses from MCOCR on issues selected in consultation
with Marine Corps leadership. The group also is working on efforts
related to CAOCL's LREC mission.
-- Recently completed research efforts by CAOCL's research group
include assessing the value of culture-related training and education
with the 7th Marine Regiment, a professional military education project
drawing lessons learned from other professional education sectors, and
research on the role of the military in the response to the Ebola virus
disease outbreak in West Africa in 2014-2015.
-- In May 2019 the MROC decision of divestment of CAOCL resulted
in an asset of $32.2M over the POM-21 FYDP. This divestment allows the
Marine Corps to invest in force modernization in line with the National
Strategy/Defense Planning Guidance.
-- In preparation for divestment in June 2020, CAOCL's research
group has not taken on any new projects; the training team has not
scheduled events beyond April 2020; and the transition of the distance
education Regional and Culture Studies Program is under development.
Archiving and preservation of material and lessons learned over 14
years is underway.
CAOCL's Staffing Level Changes
-- Since the Marine Corps' decision to divest CAOCL, the Center's
contractor-heavy staff has steadily declined in anticipation of its
June 2020 closing. To date, one of eight government employees has
relocated and not been backfilled, while the military staffing has
remained steady to facilitate divestment activities through the summer.
CAOCL's current efforts include support requirements not exceeding
summer 2020.
Way ahead
-- Capabilities provided by CAOCL will continue to be available to
the Marine Corps. Marine forces will be able to access these
capabilities either through their transfer to the developing Region and
Culture Studies center within MCU (distance and resident PME) or
through a soon to be awarded IDIQ contract (training and research)
which users will self-fund.
Ms. Speier. Question for: Lieutenant General Michael Rocco 12)
Please provide the gender and ethnicity of recruiters across the
services and in any higher DOD headquarters activity that is related to
recruiting activities
General Rocco. [Answer in original form in committee files.]
Ms. Speier. Please provide the average cost of female uniforms
compared to male uniforms.
General Rocco. [See table next page.]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
.epsMs. Speier. Mr. Garrison, I understand you wish to clarify some
details regarding the timeline of your deployments while serving as an
Army officer. Would you be able to provide that clarification to the
subcommittee?
Mr. Garrison. Chairwoman, thank you for the opportunity for this
clarification. In my testimony, both oral and written, I made the
following statement: ``By February 2003, I was in the Anbar Province of
Iraq for my first of two deployments.'' To clarify, in February 2003,
my unit, the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment stationed out of Fort Carson,
CO, received its deployment orders. In April 2003, we were physically
in theater staging in Kuwait, and in May 2003 we entered the Anbar
Province for the remainder of our 11.5-month deployment. My testimony
should have read that I was on my way to the Anbar Province at that
time rather than already being in the province. I did not want to lead
one to believe I was physically in country during that month. It was a
mistake due to maintaining multiple drafts of my testimony. I apologize
for the error.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BROWN
Mr. Brown. According to the September 2019 Active Duty Master File,
only 12% of enlisted personnel or warrant officers in SOCOM are black
or African American, despite blacks and African Americans comprising
20% of all enlisted personnel. What is your service doing to ensure
that our elite units represent not only the diversity of the nation,
but also the diversity of our enlisted personnel?
General Seamands. Any Applicant or Soldier who can meet the
standards of an officer or enlisted specialty is afforded the
opportunity to serve in that specialty, regardless of gender or race.
Army accessioning agencies specifically educate women, minorities, and
other demographic groups on the opportunities the Army provides to
ensure a diverse and healthy all volunteer force. Our elite units
represent the diversity of the Nation. The United States Army recruits
from the Qualified Military Available (Age 17-24) population; of that
population 10.3 percent are African American. Accordingly, 12 percent
African American enlisted personnel or warrant officers in USASOC
exceeds the diversity of the nation. Because of the nature of the
Special Operations missions, we look for diversity or thought,
experience, and background. Within the Army Special Operations
community we have increased outreach through the Special Operations
recruiting and our marketing campaign of ``What's Your Warrior?'' is
aimed at diversity in all fields, including our Special Operations
Forces.
Mr. Brown. According to the September 2019 Active Duty Master File,
only 2.3% of military aviators are black or African American, despite
blacks and African Americans comprising 20% of all enlisted personnel
and 8.3% of our officer corps. This trend worsens when we examine
fighter and bomber career paths, with blacks and African Americans
comprising only 1.5% of our elite pilots. What is your service doing to
ensure that our military ranks represent not only the diversity of the
nation, but also the diversity of our enlisted personnel and officer
corps?
General Seamands. The Army Aviation Center of Excellence does not
have a targeted diversity recruiting effort for African American (AA)/
Blacks, but does have a Branch Awareness Program that markets aviation
career fields to prospective applicants, regardless of race, gender,
ethnicity, etc. As part of its outreach efforts, Aviation Branch
actively recruits minorities and females during airshows, unit visits,
campus visits, and other venues. Minority and female pilots and NCOs
frequently work in Army aviation static-displays (as role models) with
the most recent being the 2019 EAA AirVenture and Helicopter
Association International (HAI) Heli-Expo air shows. Aviation Branch
also partners with the US Army Recruiting Command (USAREC), US Army
Cadet Command, and the US Army Military Academy during outreach events
to provide information and career opportunity information to
prospective candidates.
From data received in recent ROTC and USMA branching processes, AA/
Black cadets selected in aviation branch increased from 1% to 4% and 2%
to 6% respectively over the last 3 years. In comparing the 2019
Aviation Warrant Officer Selection Board process to the 2015 process,
the number of AA/Black applicants more than doubled (2015--29 vs.
2019--64), while the percentage of AA/Black applicants increased from
5.6% to 7.1%. While the numbers and percentages of AA/Black officer and
warrant officers lag behind overall accessions and commissioning rates,
recent data indicates the Army is trending in the right direction for
AA/Black warrant officer aviators. The Army acknowledges it has room
for improvement with AA/Black aviation officers and continues to work
to ensure a diverse board makeup as part of an equitable and inclusive
aviator selection process.
Finally, the Army is updating its diversity, equity, and inclusion
strategic plan which will place greater emphasis on benchmarking and
monitoring Army demographics to provide Army senior leaders outreach
proposals aimed at enhancing diversity recruiting across the Total
Force.
Mr. Brown. According to the September 2019 Active Duty Master File,
only 12% of enlisted personnel or warrant officers in SOCOM are black
or African American, despite blacks and African Americans comprising
20% of all enlisted personnel. What is your service doing to ensure
that our elite units represent not only the diversity of the nation,
but also the diversity of our enlisted personnel?
Admiral Nowell. Navy continues to build a more inclusive culture
and diverse workforce across the Fleet and recognizes the importance of
inclusion and diversity across all elite units. To recruit the highest-
quality talent, Navy's diverse workforce invests in marketing and
outreach strategies that appeal to all demographics of the U.S.
population. Navy's diverse recruiting force begins with its recruiters
and accessions, which are more demographically diverse than ever
before.
Navy Recruiting Command (NRC) oversees numerous outreach programs
to target diverse individuals to serve within special operations rates.
Warrior Challenge (WC) is the primary program to target individuals who
are qualified and interested in the challenge of serving in special
operations rates. The WC Mentor Program is a key part of Navy
recruiting efforts to identify and develop those unique people who are
in high demand, to serve as technical specialists and dependable
teammates.
Additionally, our focus encompasses multiple programs to support
demographic measures of race, gender, and ethnicity by using the
following outreach programs:
Faces of the Fleet: Documentary series highlighting Sailors'
stories of their service, family, and life. Of the 15 episodes
currently live, there are 11 that highlight diverse Sailors.
Navy Promotional Days: Promotes awareness/active recruitment
efforts at Minority Serving Institutions (Historically Black Colleges,
Hispanic-serving institutions, Tribal Colleges, Women Colleges) to
build strategic networks within diverse and under-represented
communities.
Affinity Group Partnerships: Partnership with affinity
organizations that provide direct access to high-achieving prospects
and key influencers with multiple touchpoints year-round.
Senior Minority Assistance to Recruiting Program, or SEMINAR: The
SEMINAR program was established to assist the Navy in its effort to
recruit more African American, Hispanic, and Asian/Pacific Islander
applicants and to enhance Navy's image in these communities. SEMINAR
temporarily returns highly qualified African American, Hispanic, and
Asian/Pacific Islander officers and senior enlisted personnel to their
home communities for 20 days to meet with local influential community
members and to discuss the vast educational, career, and advancement
opportunities the Navy offers.
Education Orientation Visits: An actively-engaged, compactly-
organized, two-day in-port tour of various Navy commands and
installations to key Center-of-Influence (COI) civilians with the
overarching purpose of increasing their understanding of life in
today's Navy.
As part of the Navy's Leader Development Framework, the Naval
Special Warfare Commander annually briefs Navy leadership on his
community specific efforts to demonstrate progress in achieving a
culture of excellence that espouses our Core Values of Honor, Courage,
and Commitment. The NSW Commander emphasizes developing a common
understanding and a sense of identity and belonging in the special
operations community through pre-leadership milestone courses, deck
plate leadership engagements and continuing leadership development
efforts.
The Navy remains committed to recruiting a force that will be
representative of the general population both at accession and in the
future. Navy's inclusive culture allows our leaders to capitalize on
Sailors' diversity, leveraging different perspectives and ideas to
achieve maximum possible performance in our elite units.
Mr. Brown. According to the September 2019 Active Duty Master File,
only 2.3% of military aviators are black or African American, despite
blacks and African Americans comprising 20% of all enlisted personnel
and 8.3% of our officer corps. This trend worsens when we examine
fighter and bomber career paths, with blacks and African Americans
comprising only 1.5% of our elite pilots. What is your service doing to
ensure that our military ranks represent not only the diversity of the
nation, but also the diversity of our enlisted personnel and officer
corps?
Admiral Nowell. Navy continues to build a more inclusive culture
and diverse workforce across the Fleet and recognizes the importance of
inclusion and diversity across all TYPE/MODEL/SERIES platforms.
Commander Naval Air Forces (CNAF) outreach program supports multiple
demographic affinity groups to address underrepresented groups and has
partnerships with the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals,
and many others across the country to inspire our youth to FLY NAVY.
Further, as a CNAF initiative, we have included implicit bias training
into every major symposium and commander training event. We believe
change starts from within and are actively pursuing cultural progress
through the CNO's Culture of Excellence initiative, a Navy-wide
campaign dedicated to strengthening our mission effectiveness by
instilling toughness, trust, and connectedness in Sailors to achieve
warfighting excellence. Our focus encompasses a much broader definition
of diversity beyond the traditional demographic measures of race,
gender, and ethnicity. Sailors bring their own experiences and
personalities to the Fleet and we seek out these future Sailors with
diverse backgrounds, critical thinking skills, and mental agility. By
showing young men and women from across the country what Navy has to
offer, Navy attracts Sailors with diverse experiences, thoughts and
perspectives. A few examples are: Faces of the Fleet: Documentary
series highlighting Sailors' stories of their service, family, and
life. Of the 15 episodes currently live, there are 11 that highlight
diverse Sailors. Navy Promotional Days: Promote awareness/active
recruitment efforts at Minority Serving Institutions (Historically
Black Colleges, Hispanic-serving institutions, Tribal Colleges, Women
Colleges) to build strategic networks within diverse and under-
represented communities. Senior Minority Assistance to Recruiting
Program (SEMINAR): Navy uses volunteers from the officer and enlisted
community to participate in SEMINAR--targeted towards African American,
Hispanic, and Asian/Pacific Islander, but participation is open to
other minorities who volunteer in pay grades E-6 through O-6.
Additionally, we partner with influencers in African American
communities, work with affinity groups who prioritize mentoring,
coaching and sponsorship, and publicize the accomplishments of African
American exemplars both within and outside the Navy. This provides Navy
direct access to high-achieving prospects and key influencers with
multiple touchpoints year-round. Today, Navy's inclusive culture allows
our leaders to capitalize on Sailors' diversity, leveraging different
perspectives and ideas to achieve maximum possible performance. By
including all Sailors' voices and ideas Navy can increase its
lethality, readiness and ability to solve problems in innovative and
unique ways, harnessing the exponential creative power of diversity.
Mr. Brown. According to the September 2019 Active Duty Master File,
only 12% of enlisted personnel or warrant officers in SOCOM are black
or African American, despite blacks and African Americans comprising
20% of all enlisted personnel. What is your service doing to ensure
that our elite units represent not only the diversity of the nation,
but also the diversity of our enlisted personnel?
General Kelly. Air Force Special Warfare (AFSPECWAR) recruiters are
entrenched in various cities with multiple ethnic backgrounds and
economic statuses. The special operations forces component within
AFSPECWAR is taking a holistic approach to assess and select personnel
in order to maximize the recruiting and talent pool available for
critically manned career fields. The 330th Recruiting Squadron (RS)
recently filmed commercials featuring minority (to include female) SW
Airmen. Additionally, several of our largest recruiting engagements are
in highly diverse locations (e.g. Miami Air Show during ``Urban Week'')
and have hosted multiple Athlete Leadership Bootcamps with HBCUs
(Historically Black College/University) athletic programs, Surfer-Girl
Pro and at South-Texas Air Shows to Target Hispanic populations.
Additionally the 330th RS successfully baselined entrance requirements
to give all applicants, regardless of prior aquatic comfort/access to
pools an opportunity to succeed. The AFSPECWAR Development program is
also designed to train candidates during the pre-accession process to
help them prepare, prior to entering the grueling pipeline.
Mr. Brown. According to the September 2019 Active Duty Master File,
only 2.3% of military aviators are black or African American, despite
blacks and African Americans comprising 20% of all enlisted personnel
and 8.3% of our officer corps. This trend worsens when we examine
fighter and bomber career paths, with blacks and African Americans
comprising only 1.5% of our elite pilots. What is your service doing to
ensure that our military ranks represent not only the diversity of the
nation, but also the diversity of our enlisted personnel and officer
corps?
General Kelly. The Chief of Staff of the Air Force has declared
diversity and inclusion a joint warfighting imperative. The Chief
established and chairs a monthly diversity council to provide personal
oversight over this priority challenge. The Air Force has enacted the
Chief's-directed Rated Diversity Improvement effort with a targeted
forcus on increasing demographic representation of minorities and women
in our rated community through four lines of effort: 1) Pre-Accessions;
2) Accessions; 3) Initial Training: and 4) Rated Career Retention. For
example, the service established the Air Force Recruiting Service
Detachment 1 to directly support pre-accessions and accessions lines of
effort and act as the tactical execution arm. Through constant and
recurring engagements as well as strategic partnerships, the Air Force
is making strides towards increasing the diverse applicant pool for
rated (e.g. pilots, navigators) officers.
Mr. Brown. According to the September 2019 Active Duty Master File,
only 12% of enlisted personnel or warrant officers in SOCOM are black
or African American, despite blacks and African Americans comprising
20% of all enlisted personnel. What is your service doing to ensure
that our elite units represent not only the diversity of the nation,
but also the diversity of our enlisted personnel?
General Rocco. The Marine Corps is a standards-based organization
and seeks to recruit and retain the best Marines regardless of race or
sex. The Marine Corps takes great effort in identifying and recruiting
the best-qualified Marines for Marine Special Operations Command. To
that end, all Marine Special Operators volunteer and are recruited from
within the Marine Corps. All entities from recruiting, career
counseling, training, and policy development are invested in ensuring
our Raiders represent the Marine Corps' most qualified applicants as
well as, increasing the Marines' interest in applying and volunteering
for these specialized billets.
Mr. Brown. According to the September 2019 Active Duty Master File,
only 2.3% of military aviators are black or African American, despite
blacks and African Americans comprising 20% of all enlisted personnel
and 8.3% of our officer corps. This trend worsens when we examine
fighter and bomber career paths, with blacks and African Americans
comprising only 1.5% of our elite pilots. What is your service doing to
ensure that our military ranks represent not only the diversity of the
nation, but also the diversity of our enlisted personnel and officer
corps?
General Rocco. The Marine Corps is a standards-based organization
and seek to recruit and retain the best Marines regardless of race or
sex. Nevertheless, we are working to be more inclusive--to actively
seek out underrepresented groups. Our Recruiting Command partners with
a whole host of organizations to find the best future Marines. All
Marine Corps aviators come from the commissioned officer ranks.
Commissioned officers are required to have a bachelor's degree. We find
opportunities to bring our Marine Corps Leadership Seminar to
Historically Black Colleges and other universities to increase interest
in the Marine Corps by underrepresented groups within our Corps.
Additionally, the Marine Corps actively participates in various
Outreach and affinity group events specifically focused on aviation and
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math throughout the year to
expand awareness of the opportunities the Marine Corps has to offer.
Qualified individuals contract with the Marine Corps for the
opportunity to attend pilot training. Those who successfully complete
the training become Naval Aviators.
[all]