[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



                         [H.A.S.C. No. 116-96]

                    FORT HOOD 2020: THE FINDINGS AND

                         RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE

                         FORT HOOD INDEPENDENT

                            REVIEW COMMITTEE

                               __________

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                   SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY PERSONNEL

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                     ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                              HEARING HELD

                            DECEMBER 9, 2020

                                     
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 

                              __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
42-928                      WASHINGTON : 2021                     
          
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                   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
               Hannah Kaufman, Professional Staff Member
                 Paul Golden, Professional Staff Member
                         Danielle Steitz, Clerk
                           
                           C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

              STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Kelly, Hon. Trent, a Representative from Mississippi, Ranking 
  Member, Subcommittee on Military Personnel.....................     4
Speier, Hon. Jackie, a Representative from California, 
  Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Military Personnel.................     1

                               WITNESSES

Swecker, Chris, Chair, Fort Hood Independent Review Committee; 
  Jonathan Harmon, Carrie Ricci, Queta Rodriguez, and Jack White, 
  Members, Fort Hood Independent Review Committee................     6

                                APPENDIX

Prepared Statements:

    Fort Hood Independent Review Committee.......................    50
    Speier, Hon. Jackie..........................................    47

Documents Submitted for the Record:

    [There were no Documents submitted.]

Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:

    [There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]

Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:

    [There were no Questions submitted post hearing.]
                    
                    
                    FORT HOOD 2020: THE FINDINGS AND

     RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE FORT HOOD INDEPENDENT REVIEW COMMITTEE

                              ----------                              

                  House of Representatives,
                       Committee on Armed Services,
                        Subcommittee on Military Personnel,
                       Washington, DC, Wednesday, December 9, 2020.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:01 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. The Military Personnel Subcommittee of the 
Armed Services Committee will come to order.
    Members who are joining remotely must be visible on screen 
for the purposes of identity verification, establishing and 
maintaining a quorum, participating in the proceeding, and 
voting. Those members must continue to use the software 
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    Members participating remotely must seek recognition 
verbally, and they are asked to mute their microphones when 
they are not speaking. Members who are participating remotely 
are reminded to keep the software platform's video function on 
the entire time they attend the proceedings.
    Members may leave and rejoin the proceedings. If members 
depart for a short while for reasons other than joining a 
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If members will be absent for a significant period or depart to 
join a different proceeding, they should exit the software 
platform entirely and then rejoin if they return.
    Members may use the software platform's chat feature to 
communicate with staff regarding technical or logistical 
support issues only.
    Finally, I have designated a committee staff member to, if 
necessary, mute unrecognized members' microphones to cancel any 
inadvertent background noise that may disrupt the proceedings.
    All right. This hearing will now discuss on a hybrid level 
the report submitted by the committee entitled ``The Findings 
and Recommendations of the Fort Hood Independent Review 
Committee.''
    At the outset, I want to say to the five members of this 
committee how grateful we are for your service. You have done 
an exhaustive study. It has been independent and fair. You have 
tackled problems head-on, and you have completed this project 
in 3 months. Your resumes reflect your intellect, your years of 
experience, and your commitment to public service.
    I also want to commend Secretary McCarthy for recognizing 
that there was a serious problem at Fort Hood and for putting 
in place this independent review commission--or committee, I 
should say--to look at what is indeed a national tragedy.
    Our focus today are the 9 findings and the 70--I will 
repeat that--70 review committee recommendations after this 
extensive investigation into whether the command climate and 
culture at Fort Hood reflects the Army's values, including 
respect, inclusiveness, a workplace free from sexual 
harassment, and a commitment to diversity.
    Despite red flags popping up for years, leaders ignored 
them, carried on, and--I quote from the report--``business as 
usual, causing female soldiers, particularly in the combat 
brigades, to slip into survival mode, vulnerable and preyed 
upon, but fearful to report and be ostracized and 
revictimized,'' unquote--that, a statement from the committee's 
report.
    It has been a difficult year for everyone, with the raging 
pandemic, deep divisions, and racial reckoning facing our 
Nation. But it has been even more difficult as a year for the 
soldiers and families of Fort Hood. Like the rest of us, they 
face a deadly pandemic, civil unrest, and extreme inequality, 
but, unlike us, they also must live and work on the most 
dangerous military installation in the United States. Let me 
repeat that: the most dangerous military installation in the 
United States.
    Twenty-eight service members have died at Fort Hood this 
year. At least five of them--Specialist Vanessa Guillen, 
Private First Class Gregory Wedel Morales, Private First Class 
Brandon Scott Rosencrans, Sergeant Elder Fernandes, and 
Specialist Freddy Beningo Delacruz--have died under suspicious 
circumstances.
    I might also add that we just got word that there was a 
suicide at Fort Hood just over the weekend.
    And it is not just violent crime that is plaguing Fort Hood 
but unlivable housing conditions, rising instances of sexual 
harassment, a failing SHARP [Sexual Harassment/Assault Response 
and Prevention] program, increased rates of depression, and a 
bottoming-out of morale.
    The report of the Fort Hood Independent Review Committee 
confirms what I saw with my own eyes: The base, once nicknamed, 
quote, ``great place,'' unquote, because of the quality of life 
it offered to its soldiers, has been transformed into, quote, 
``the place where careers go to die,'' unquote.
    In September, I led a congressional delegation to Fort 
Hood. We met with soldiers and their families. We saw their 
barracks with cracked foundations, moldy walls, dingy 
furniture, and poorly lit hallways. Soldiers were living in 
rat-infested tenements. Families were living in black-mold-
infected homes with asbestos tiling and cracking foundations.
    In my 8 years on this committee visiting military 
installations, I have never seen barracks and family housing in 
such deplorable conditions.
    We heard from teary-eyed mothers who begged for assistance 
because their children--in fact, their infants--were sleeping 
on moldy mattresses and developing asthma.
    We heard from military spouses who were afraid for their 
husbands and wives for their overwork, their exhaustion, their 
misery, and depression, afraid they would come home to find 
their loved one hanging in the shower or dead on the floor.
    We met with junior enlisted women who described a culture 
of sexual harassment, a culture of leaders watching as women 
and men were harassed before their eyes but kept silent, squad 
leaders and platoon leaders who seemed either unwilling or 
unsure how to help them. So their harassment became just 
another hazard of being a soldier, and no one was held 
accountable, and not one leader stepped forward.
    We visited the SHARP 360 facility that a few enterprising 
NCOs [noncommissioned officers] and soldiers designed. Taking 
furniture from their homes and spending their weekends 
painting, the NCOs created an interactive training space for 
soldiers to train in real-world scenarios.
    We know that ``death by PowerPoint'' is not an effective 
strategy for reshaping military culture to prevent sexual 
harassment and assault, yet programs like these are 
underfunded, understaffed, and underadvertised. We cannot rely 
on a few soldiers at disparate installations to come up with 
their own training methods without proper support.
    But it turns out Fort Hood wasn't even training by 
PowerPoint. In fact, they weren't training their soldiers at 
all.
    The report also provides an inside look at a military 
installation where soldiers are suffering under leaders who 
have lost their way, crushed by unsustainable training 
calendars, deployment schedules, and careless leaders chasing 
the next rank instead of caring for their soldiers.
    This report is a damning indictment of Fort Hood and its 
leadership--leaders who, for years, even as they paid lip 
service to Congress and said all the right things, allowed a 
culture of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and toxic 
behaviors to fester.
    The committee's survey of Fort Hood soldiers found that 
1,339 soldiers observed a sexual assault in the last year--this 
is the Fort Hood Independent Review Committee--and 2,625 
observed sexual harassments, but very few actually made a 
report. I am appalled, and I think the Army should be appalled 
as well.
    I am grateful for the time and effort the Independent 
Review Committee put into this. The curtain has been pulled 
back, and I hope the Army sees the same traumatic environment 
and toxic culture that I do.
    This report is the culmination of a long, difficult year--
really, a difficult 5 or 10 years for soldiers and families at 
Fort Hood. But I am saddened that it took the deaths of five 
soldiers before anyone really listened to the pleas from 
southeastern Texas. I am concerned that their commanders, their 
leaders, and the Army ignored them for so long.
    But I promise that I am listening and I will keep listening 
until every one of these recommendations is implemented. Our 
soldiers and their families are too important to this Nation to 
brush off.
    My promise to the soldiers, families, and all those who 
serve our country: I will keep listening. I believe this 
committee will keep listening. We will hold the Army and its 
leadership accountable. We won't stop asking questions until 
Fort Hood once again is, quote, ``the great place,'' unquote, 
it claims to be.
    Before I introduce our panel, I would like to acknowledge 
the incredible work of our committee members during this 
Congress, especially those participating in their last Military 
Personnel Subcommittee hearing today.
    We are joined, to my right, by Congresswoman Susan Davis, 
the former chair of this committee, who has served 20 years on 
the Armed Services Committee and who will be retiring at the 
end of this year.
    Also, to Gil Cisneros, Ralph Abraham, and Paul Mitchell, 
all of you have been great participants in this committee's 
work.
    Before I offer Ranking Member Kelly an opportunity to make 
opening remarks, I would like to congratulate him on his 
promotion to Major General in the National Guard Reserves.
    Congratulations to you.
    Ranking Member Kelly.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Speier can be found in the 
Appendix on page 47.]

     STATEMENT OF HON. TRENT KELLY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 
MISSISSIPPI, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY PERSONNEL

    Mr. Kelly. You made me blush, Chairwoman.
    Thank you, Chairwoman Speier, for having this important 
hearing today.
    And thank each of you panelists. As we spoke briefly 
before, thank you for seeking truth and justice and taking your 
time and doing your duty to your Nation to dig deep to find the 
truth. I am an old prosecutor, and truth and facts matter, but 
it takes men and women of courage sometimes to dig out those 
truths. So thank you for what you have done as our panelists, 
and thank you for sharing your findings and recommendations 
with us.
    I look forward to a productive discussion today, because 
the tragedies at Fort Hood over the past year and some of the 
other issues raised in the press and from when I traveled to 
Fort Hood, like crime rates in general, housing issues, 
crushing OPTEMPO [operational tempo], the poor quality of life, 
especially for the families, are very personal problems to me.
    I will take a point of privilege now to say that Chairwoman 
Speier and I, I believe, in the last 2 years' Congress, through 
this subcommittee, have achieved more for military families 
than any Congress I am aware of in a long, long time, and that 
is a testament to how much we care about our military families.
    These are very personal problems for me. I have been in the 
Army for almost 34 years, and while I know that when we throw 
up our hands and volunteer to serve, mission accomplishment is 
and has to be the number one goal of every commander and 
soldier, but we get there by making people--service members and 
their families--our number one priority.
    Retired Sergeant Major Gene Maske of the Mississippi 
National Guard used to have huge billboards up in Mississippi 
that said ``Mission First, People Always.'' There is no 
statement more true. And it applied in the 1980s or 1990s, and 
it applies today. Not the motor pool, not the training 
calendar, not the training center rotations. When people are 
prioritized and the right balance is put in place, those other 
requirements become much easier to complete and they are 
completed more effectively.
    I think there have been some obvious breakdowns not only at 
Fort Hood but likely across the services as requirements 
compound and OPTEMPO becomes all-consuming. And it only takes a 
little loss of focus by leaders for their problems to spiral 
out of control for units, soldiers, and their families.
    There will be some accountability resulting from the 
various investigations and reviews completed at Fort Hood, and 
accountability and responsibility is important. But what I am 
most interested in is looking forward, making sure change is 
institutionalized where change is needed, and using what we 
have learned at Fort Hood as a case study for all leaders, 
starting with the Secretary of Defense down to the squad and 
team leader level, so that systems are in place for ensuring 
service members and their families are given the priority they 
earned and deserve.
    Trust is paramount for any military unit or organization. 
If soldiers and families feel like leaders don't care about 
their well-being, keeping them safe from sexual assault and 
harassment or crime in general, or making sure that all are 
treated with dignity and respect, then trust is gone and combat 
effectiveness is depleted. We simply cannot tolerate a culture 
that does not recognize people as its number one priority.
    Your testimony today is very much appreciated. Thank you 
again to our panelists and again to Chairwoman Speier for 
calling this hearing.
    And, with that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
    Ms. Speier. All right.
    I would like to ask unanimous consent that Congressmembers 
Sylvia Garcia and Steve Lynch be allowed to join us at this 
committee hearing.
    Mr. Kelly. Without opposition.
    Ms. Speier. So be it.
    All right. Each witness will provide a brief introduction 
and their focus on the committee. Then Mr. Swecker will present 
a joint statement on behalf of the Fort Hood Independent Review 
Committee. And each member will have an opportunity to question 
the witnesses for 5 minutes.
    We respectfully ask the witnesses to summarize their 
testimony in 5 minutes. Your written comments and statements 
will be made part of the hearing record.
    Let us begin now with Mr. Chris Swecker, chair of the Fort 
Hood Independent Review Committee.

STATEMENT OF CHRIS SWECKER, CHAIR, FORT HOOD INDEPENDENT REVIEW 
COMMITTEE; JONATHAN HARMON, CARRIE RICCI, QUETA RODRIGUEZ, AND 
  JACK WHITE, MEMBERS, FORT HOOD INDEPENDENT REVIEW COMMITTEE

    Mr. Swecker. Chairwoman Speier, Ranking Member Kelly, and 
distinguished members of the subcommittee, we want to thank you 
for the opportunity to appear before you to discuss the 
findings and recommendations of the Fort Hood Independent 
Review Committee.
    The Secretary of the Army----
    Ms. Speier. Sir, your microphone may not be on.
    Mr. Swecker. The Secretary of the Army appointed five 
members, who join me today--Jonathan Harmon, Carrie Ricci, 
Queta Rodriguez, Jack White, and myself as chairman of the 
committee--in July of this year.
    Jonathan Harmon is the chairman of McGuireWoods, LLP. He is 
a nationally recognized lawyer who previously served in the 
Army at Fort Hood in the 1st Cavalry Division after graduating 
from West Point.
    Carrie Ricci is a retired JAG [Judge Advocate General] 
officer who served 3 years at Fort Hood, including as a trial 
counsel, and now serves as associate general counsel for the 
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
    Queta Rodriguez is a retired Marine Corps officer who 
served 20 years on Active Duty. She currently serves as 
regional director for FourBlock, a veteran-serving nonprofit.
    Jack White is a partner at FH+H, LLC, where his practice 
focuses on government investigations and civil rights claims. 
He served as a law clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court after 
graduating from West Point and serving as an armor officer in 
the Active Army and the U.S. Army Reserve.
    The committee has broad expertise with organizational 
dynamics, law and government investigations, and a combined 75 
years of experience as Active Duty military and law enforcement 
personnel.
    The committee was directed by the Secretary of the Army to 
conduct a comprehensive assessment of the Fort Hood command 
climate and culture and its impact, if any, on the safety, 
welfare, and readiness of our soldiers and units.
    In addressing this mandate, the committee determined that, 
during the time period covered by the review, the command 
climate relative to sexual harassment/assault response and 
prevention at Fort Hood was ineffective, to the extent that 
there was a permissive environment for sexual assault and 
sexual harassment.
    The committee's report set forth specific findings which 
demonstrate that the implementation of the SHARP program was 
ineffective. During the review period, no commanding general or 
subordinate echelon commander chose to intervene proactively 
and mitigate known risks of high crime, sexual assault, and 
sexual harassment. The result was a pervasive lack of 
confidence in the SHARP program and an unacceptable lack of 
knowledge of core SHARP components regarding reporting and 
certain victim services.
    Under the III Corps SHARP program, the Sexual Assault 
Review Board process was primarily utilized to address 
administrative and not the actual substance of the program. 
While a powerful tool by design, the Sexual Assault Review 
Board process became a missed opportunity to develop and 
implement proactive strategies to create a respectful culture 
and prevent and reduce incidents of sexual assault and sexual 
harassment.
    From the III Corps level and below, the SHARP program was 
chronically underresourced due to understaffing, lack of 
training, lack of credentialed SHARP professionals, and a lack 
of funding. Most of all, it lacked command emphasis where it 
was needed the most: in the junior enlisted ranks.
    A resonant symptom of the SHARP program's ineffective 
implementation was significant underreporting of sexual 
harassment and sexual assault. Without intervention from the 
noncommissioned officers and officers entrusted with their 
health and safety, victims feared the inevitable consequences 
of reporting: ostracism, shunning and shaming, harsh treatment, 
and damage to their career. Many have left the Army or plan to 
do so at the earliest opportunity.
    As part of the command climate, the issues of crime and the 
Criminal Investigative Division [CID] operations were examined. 
The committee determined that serious issues on and off Fort 
Hood were neither identified nor addressed.
    There was an absence of an effective risk management 
approach to crime incident reduction and soldier victimization. 
Despite having the capability, very few tools were employed at 
Fort Hood to do so. Both the Directorate of Emergency Services 
and the CID have a mandate and a role to play in crime 
reduction. Each contributed very little analysis, feedback, and 
general situational awareness to the command toward 
facilitating and enabling such action. This was another missed 
opportunity.
    The deficient climate also extended into missing-soldier 
scenarios where no one recognized the slippage in 
accountability procedures and unwillingness or lack of ability 
of the noncommissioned officers to keep track of their 
subordinates. The absence of any protocols for soldiers who 
failed to report resulted in an ad hoc approach by units and 
the MPs to effectively address instances of missing soldiers 
during the critical first 24 hours.
    Consistent with the chart, the report sets forth 9 findings 
and 70 recommendations. These findings include the ineffective 
implementation of the SHARP program; evidence that incidents of 
sexual assault and sexual harassment are underreported; 
structural flaws in the program; inefficiencies of the CID that 
adversely impacted their mission; the mechanics of the Army's 
adjudication process involving sexual assault and sexual 
harassment; deficiencies of the Fort Hood public relations and 
incident management; the lack of established protocols for 
missing soldiers; the fact that the criminal environment within 
surrounding areas and counties is pretty much the same or lower 
than similar-size areas; however, there are unaddressed crime 
problems at Fort Hood which put them in a reactive posture.
    There are other parts to our opening statement, but, in the 
interest of time, I want to point out one last thing to the 
subcommittee here as far as methodology. We conducted 647 
individual interviews, of which 500 were female soldiers. We 
did 80 group interviews that encompassed close to over 1,800 
soldiers. We had 31,000 responses to a survey, which was 
basically a 100 percent response, which is unheard of. We 
commissioned 49 formal research projects, which informed us and 
helped us use the Army's own data to help us form our 
conclusions. We did over 140 specialized interviews inside and 
outside Fort Hood. And we looked at thousands of documents.
    Soldiers assaulting and harassing other soldiers is both 
corrosive to esprit de corps and contrary to good order and 
discipline; worse, it is contrary to Army values. The findings 
and recommendations contained in the report are offered in the 
spirit of constructive improvements, not to provide a basis for 
punitive actions.
    That concludes my statement--our statement. And as the 
chair of the Fort Hood Independent Review Committee, we welcome 
the opportunity to field any questions. And with your 
permission, I will direct them to the appropriate committee 
members as necessary, since we each focused on different parts 
of the report, with your permission.
    [The prepared statement of the Fort Hood Independent Review 
Committee can be found in the Appendix on page 50.]
    Ms. Speier. Thank you very much, Mr. Swecker.
    Do any of the other committee members want to make some 
opening comments?
    All right. Very good.
    Ms. Garcia. Madam Chair, can I ask a point of 
clarification?
    Ms. Speier. Yes.
    Ms. Garcia. I see three witnesses at the table. Are the 
other two people behind them the other two witnesses?
    Ms. Speier. Yes, because of the need to----
    Ms. Garcia. Could we just at least introduce them? Because 
they don't have nameplates.
    Ms. Speier. All right.
    Mr. Swecker, would you like to introduce them----
    Mr. Swecker. Yes.
    Ms. Speier [continuing]. And have them stand?
    Ms. Garcia. And, if you would, sir, could you tell us what 
area of expertise or which part of the puzzle they worked so 
that it will be easier for us when we address questions?
    Mr. Swecker. To my left----
    Ms. Garcia. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Mr. Swecker. Sorry.
    To my left is Queta Rodriguez. She worked on several 
aspects of the report and--I mean, we are all very conversant 
with the report. But she worked on the underreporting finding 
and, I believe, the public relations finding; also the lack-of-
confidence-in-the-SHARP-program finding.
    To my back right is Jonathan Harmon. Jonathan worked very 
hard on the methodology and finding number 9, which was the 
overall conclusion that relied on the first eight findings, 
which was--the overall conclusion was it was a permissive 
environment.
    Carrie Ricci, as a former JAG officer, worked on the 
finding that deals with the JAG process or the military justice 
process, as well as the public relations finding, I believe.
    Jack White took on various aspects of the report, 
especially finding number 3, which deals with the structural 
aspects of the SHARP program; also on the executive summary as 
well as other parts of it.
    But, as I said, we are all very conversant in all aspects 
of the program, and we welcome your questions.
    Ms. Speier. Thank you again.
    Mr. Swecker, let me begin by asking you a question. You 
were in the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] for 24 years 
and completed your career as the assistant director for the 
[FBI] Criminal Investigative Division.
    In the report, the committee found that the [Army] Criminal 
Investigative Division detachment workforce was unstable, 
underexperienced, overassigned and underresourced, leading to 
inefficiencies that had an adverse impact on investigations, 
especially cases involving sex crimes and soldier deaths.
    During the Guillen investigation, the CID detachment 
received almost no support from their battalion leadership, 
resulting in an undermanned, inexperienced team investigating a 
high-profile disappearance. The lack of experience of those 
agents resulted in brief, choppy interviews of key individuals 
in the Guillen case. The interviews appeared to be rote and, 
indeed, checklist-driven. That is a very powerful, depressing 
statement about the Army's CID.
    Could you expand on that?
    One of my concerns has been that the CID, when they came 
and testified here, when we met with them at Fort Hood, had 
really a very happy-face presentation, and yet what you have 
disclosed here would suggest deeply troubling problems.
    And, if I am not mistaken, the chief investigator in the 
middle of the investigation of Vanessa Guillen's disappearance 
was transferred. Is that correct?
    Mr. Swecker. That is correct.
    Ms. Speier. So please enlighten us.
    Mr. Swecker. Madam Chairwoman, with the experience that we 
have, we also had four other retired FBI special agents working 
with us to assist.
    In our estimation, the Fort Hood CID was basically being 
used as a training ground. They had 45 special agents assigned; 
I think maybe 35 or so were actually working cases, or the 
spaces just weren't filled. Of those 35, there might have been 
3 or 4 with more than 3 years of work experience.
    About 93 percent of the enlisted special agents were 
apprentice agents during the relevant time period. That would 
be like staffing the New York Field Office of the FBI with new 
agents right out of Quantico. This is one of the busiest 
military installations in the country, maybe around the globe, 
and yet there were very few experienced agents.
    There was fairly chronic understaffing. I think, during 
most of the review period that we looked at, they were right at 
about 65 percent. They hadn't reallocated their agent 
complement for 5 years, so they were static over 5 years in 
terms of how many agents they were actually allowed. That 
doesn't mean they had the people in the seats.
    So what we saw was chronic inexperience that translated, we 
felt like, into they had a difficult time. And it is not their 
fault. These are brand-new agents, right out of Fort Leonard 
Wood, with very few mentors. I mean, the supervisors and the 
head of the office, the special agent in charge, very competent 
and very experienced, but just not enough journeyman-level 
special agents to mentor the younger agents. There was not 
enough continuity.
    We found that they didn't have some of the specialized 
tools readily available, like cell-phone tracking, like 
extraction of data from cell phones and mobile devices, the 
ability to go to a magistrate, draft and develop probable cause 
to get a warrant, and that sort of thing.
    So we saw that carry over into death investigations, which 
are complex. We saw that carry over into sexual assault 
investigations, which were complex. We wanted to know more 
about the suicides--why, the cause, the lifestyle factors, 
anything that might be relevant. We didn't see deep-enough 
investigation into the 50 suicide files that I reviewed, nor 
the death investigations.
    And, again, it is not the fault of the CID agents on the 
ground. It just was being used as a training ground.
    Ms. Speier. So one of the shocking things to me was the 
fact that it wasn't until after Vanessa Guillen's body was 
located that CID actually went back to the arms room and did a 
thorough investigation. Does that surprise you?
    Mr. Swecker. It did, as an experienced investigator.
    The first 24 hours--the first hours in any investigation of 
a missing person are absolutely critical. And what played into 
this somewhat was the lack of missing-soldier protocols, the 
critical first 24 hours. The noncommissioned officers, who 
would be the first to notice someone missing, really didn't 
have any guidelines to go by in terms of how to determine what 
was suspicious, what are the criteria.
    The CID investigators, despite the fact that they had all 
of Vanessa Guillen's personal belongings left behind at a place 
where she was supposed to come back to within 10 minutes or so, 
got themselves diverted because of two other witnesses that 
threw their timeline off. We believe that experienced 
investigators would not have been thrown off by, you know, sort 
of, the red-herring aspect of those other witnesses.
    Ms. Speier. Let me just ask you one more question. You 
found that the command climate surveys were being collected, 
that the data was very negative, and no one appeared to be 
reviewing them. How do we make commanders at Fort Hood and 
other installations take these command climate surveys 
seriously?
    Mr. Swecker. We felt like that was a very, very valuable 
source of information for us, was the command climate surveys. 
And they did indeed show some pretty dismal results, 
particularly with the larger units on the base--the 1st Cavalry 
Division and 3d Cavalry Regiment.
    And what we determined was that these climate surveys were 
not being used the way they should have been used. They are not 
to be used for punitive action, but they should be used for 
corrective action. And they should have been taken to heart, 
and it should have stimulated something like going out and 
talking to your troops, like the CODEL [congressional 
delegation] did and like we did and like the Secretary of the 
Army did. Because, as soon as you got face-to-face with the 
troops, they had no trouble speaking out about some of the 
problems.
    So we felt like the climate surveys--the Army takes the 
time and expense to do them; they ought to be taken to heart, 
and they ought to be used effectively. And we address that in 
our recommendations.
    Ms. Speier. Thank you.
    Ranking Member Kelly.
    Mr. Kelly. I first want to commend and thank Secretary 
McCarthy, General McConville, and Sergeant Major of the Army 
Grinston for having the courage to step outside what may be the 
norm and to get you guys to look at this. And I just want to 
say, I think that is an outstanding step. And that means that 
at the highest levels of leadership they want to effect change.
    With that being said, I want to ask you, what specific 
recommendations of the 70 findings have you--since your study, 
your findings, what have you discussed with the Sergeant Major 
of the Army, what have you discussed with the Chief of Staff of 
the Army, and what have you discussed with Secretary McCarthy 
or other folks about what are they planning to do to implement 
these recommendations?
    Mr. Swecker. So I would like to take part of that question, 
and, if you don't mind, I am going to pass another part of it 
off to Jack White.
    We have had extensive discussions with the Secretary. We 
believe that his and his staff's desire--the Under Secretary, 
the Chief of Staff--are very sincere in getting out ahead of 
this. And they have spent the last 3 weeks, between the time we 
gave them the report and yesterday, setting up the People First 
Task Force, getting their troops in touch with their soldiers, 
which is one of the most important aspects of this, is getting 
the NCOs in touch with the soldiers that they have under their 
command.
    So we believe that they are well out ahead of this right 
now, but I also want to give Jack White a chance to respond to 
that question as well, since he worked on that part of the 
recommendations.
    Mr. White. Ranking Member Kelly, we spoke directly with the 
Chief of Staff----
    Ms. Speier. Could turn your microphone on?
    Mr. Swecker. It is on.
    Ms. Speier. It is on?
    Mr. White. It is on.
    Ms. Speier. Okay. Maybe if you could move your----
    Mr. White. Sure.
    Ms. Speier [continuing]. Microphone a little bit closer, 
that would be helpful.
    Mr. White. We spoke directly with the Secretary, the Under 
Secretary, the Chief of Staff, the Vice Chief, and the Sergeant 
Major. We were very heartened by how seriously they took our 
recommendations. Immediately after performing a thorough 
review, rather than dismiss any of our findings, they adopted 
all of our findings.
    Now, as to the recommendations, they have had us speak with 
them at length about the substance. And our recommendations 
break out into categories regarding SHARP structure, 
implementation of the program, legal components of the program, 
adjudication, USACIDC [United States Army Criminal 
Investigation Command] issues, missing-soldier protocols, 
command climate issues. In each of these areas, the Army has 
humbly demonstrated an openness to accepting what we have seen 
and implementing specific protocols.
    Moreover, before we even finished, the Army put together an 
organization called the People First Task Force. That is led by 
a three-star and other senior Army leaders whose sole purpose 
is to look at the problems that we have identified and figure 
out----
    Mr. Kelly. I am going to cut you off now. Thank you. And I 
hope these discussions will continue, because I--we are limited 
on time, and I have other questions.
    One of the things I want to make sure--and I read, and I 
can't remember. I want to make sure that we are using these 
SHARP positions or the SHARP coordinators or all these things--
I want to make sure that we are getting the best the Army has 
to offer in these positions, not someone who is about to retire 
or not a secondary duty.
    It should be one of those things like the IG [inspector 
general]; it should be considered a key position. And when you 
leave there, the expectation for doing that job should be to be 
promoted, not to retire, to be promoted to battalion command or 
brigade command or first sergeant, whatever that is.
    So I hope that, if you haven't----
    And then, finally, the final question that I will have time 
for: Why Fort Hood-specific? It is hard for me to imagine, with 
the dynamic leaders that I know in the Army and with the 
transitional nature of our forces, so leaders come in from 
other places to be brigade/division sergeant majors, commanding 
officers--so why Fort Hood? And why didn't these leaders coming 
from other bases--why did they not send up red flags? That is 
the difference between being a leader and a boss, is they 
should have recognized that.
    Did your findings address or have any reason to say, why 
didn't the guy coming from NTC [National Training Center] or 
1st Infantry Division--why did they not notice that this was so 
out of whack at Fort Hood?
    Mr. Swecker. Well, to your point, we said in the report, 
this was a known risk. And if you talk about basic risk 
management concepts, it was more than a known risk. I mean, 
they had the highest rate in the Army of sexual assault at Fort 
Hood. There were studies after studies after studies that 
ranked Fort Hood the highest risk.
    We also know that, you know, if you take 4,000 in a combat 
brigade--and I use that loosely because there are different 
MOSes [military occupational specialties] inside the combat 
brigade. But if you take 4,000 alpha males and salt them in 
with 300 or 400 female soldiers, common sense alone would tell 
you you should keep an eye on it. So, known risk in so many 
different ways.
    We looked at other installations, but we really--for 
purposes of comparison, and we found that other installations 
were doing better in some cases, at least anecdotally.
    But, you know, we found that Fort Hood was an outlier in so 
many areas: suicides, AWOL [absent without leave], sexual 
assaults, on and on and on. That is what our research projects 
told us. And we were told that they had very seldom seen one 
place be such an outlier in this type of study. But we just 
simply didn't have the resources and the mandate to go outside 
of Fort Hood and do a deep dive.
    Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Chairwoman Speier. And I yield back, 
but thank you for yielding me a little extra time.
    Ms. Speier. Of course.
    Mr. Swecker, in my fantasy world, you are all going to be 
hired to go to each installation and base to do this, because I 
am not convinced that this is just a Fort Hood problem.
    All right. Congresswoman Susan Davis, you are recognized 
for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    And thank you very much for your being here, for the 
exceptional job that you did. And I think we always hate for 
tragedies to trigger, you know, something that we study but we 
don't do anything about, and that is my concern as well. So I 
greatly appreciate the fact that this is something that we need 
to continue to work on very hard.
    I was also interested in--I think the chairwoman just 
mentioned as well--how you feel that we can take this as a 
prototype, perhaps, in your explanations, the way you went 
about it, and be able to apply it as we look at other bases and 
other programs that are out there.
    Because we have done a lot of work in that regard. I know 
we have had charts demonstrating where more problems are than 
others. But I am just hoping that out of this and your 
recommendations--and I haven't had a chance to study them 
specifically--but how do we use that information to apply--how 
is it different than what we have done before? Because a lot of 
things have been tried.
    I wanted to go quickly to this issue of the command survey 
and the fact that they weren't really using it.
    One of the issues that we have talked about in the past is 
being certain that a command survey plays a role in advancement 
of men and women who will continue to serve at a higher level. 
I get the feeling from your comments that you didn't see that 
that was even in the realm of what people were looking at.
    I would like to ask Ms. Ricci, could you respond? And you 
had, I think, wanted to respond a moment ago as well.
    Ms. Ricci. Yeah. I just wanted to say that SHARP was a 
check-the-block program. So, to Ranking Member Kelly's 
question, when you are being judged on how ready your unit is--
and these units are training, deploying, training, deploying--
being able to check the block on SHARP, you almost can't blame 
commanders when they are being actually rated on all the other 
things.
    So the doctrine was there, and it was correct, but the 
implementation resulted in just checking the block. And that is 
where the problems came forward.
    So I think that is really the main reason why--why Fort 
Hood? The constant OPTEMPO. It could be happening at other 
bases; we did not look directly at them. But the check-the-
block nature of the program.
    Mrs. Davis. So how would you change that?
    Ms. Ricci. And for that, I definitely want to have Mr. 
White speak to the structure of SHARP, because that was a major 
problem as well.
    Mrs. Davis. Okay.
    Mr. White.
    Mr. White. A number of the challenges are cultural.
    To make it not a check-the-box, one of the recommendations 
that we have creates a sort of pool of SHARP professionals who 
do not report--now, let me be careful how I say this. The 
command has an extraordinarily important role in the 
implementation of the SHARP program. However, what one of our 
recommendations is is that these SHARP professionals report to 
a SHARP program manager on the installation, not to their 
direct unit commanders.
    Now, those SHARP professionals also speak directly to the 
commander about SHARP training, and they assess the training 
status of the units.
    Mrs. Davis. Uh-huh.
    Mr. White. And what all of these recommendations are 
getting at is changing the culture. The words that resonate 
throughout our report are ``culture.'' There is a certain 
culture in which, you know, no female soldier is more afraid of 
what happens to her inside the wire than she is outside the 
wire. So there is an entire section of our report that is 
dedicated to that.
    Mrs. Davis. Thank you. I appreciate that, Mr. White.
    Is there a way, then--because we have had this discussion 
about commanding officers and the chain of command and morale 
and discipline and all those issues. So can you put that in a 
context of what you have just shared, that there is something 
important, I think I was hearing, about the role of the 
commander, but that it is not necessarily a JAG officer or a 
prosecutor that you need; it sounded like you need somebody 
else in there. And that is, maybe, confusing to people.
    Mr. White. Well----
    Mrs. Davis. And I think my time is up, Madam Chair.
    Ms. Speier. No, that is all right. I think it is an 
important question.
    And I do believe you asked that they take these positions 
out of the chain of command. Is that not correct?
    Mr. White. That they are not rated by their commanders, 
that the SHARP professionals are not rated by the commanders. 
So that is true.
    Ms. Speier. Yeah.
    Mr. Swecker. If I might add----
    Ms. Speier. Yeah.
    Mr. Swecker [continuing]. The SARCs [Sexual Assault 
Response Coordinators] are sort of the intake people. And they 
are full-time at the brigade level, and they are collateral at 
the battalion level. We recommended that the SARCs--they do 
away with collateral, because they are not trusted inside the 
units at that level, and make the SARCs full-time at the 
brigade level, which they already are, but civilianize the 
SARCs. Because they are the traffic people. They intake the 
complaint, and they funnel it where it needs to go. They are 
theoretically the first person that a victim will go to. 
Victims' advocates are the ones that service the victim.
    We talk about taking all of the collateral positions and 
consolidating enough of them at the corps level so that you 
don't have to necessarily go to the brigade. You can go up to 
corps at a very--what we call a very strong program office, 
civilianized program office. When I say ``civilianized,'' I 
mean it could be led by a civilian or someone at a high 
military level, someone who can go toe-to-toe with the corps 
commander if need be.
    And that gives a victim an option. You can go to the 
brigade; it is civilian. Or you can go all the way up to corps 
if you want to see somebody in a green suit or you want to get 
completely out of your brigade and get somewhere where you feel 
comfortable reporting.
    We also talk about keeping longer hours so they don't have 
to excuse themselves from their units and ask their boss to go 
somewhere to do a complaint at brigade level because everybody 
knows what they are doing.
    Ms. Speier. Thank you.
    Mr. Bergman, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Bergman. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Two quick but kind of complicated questions.
    When you do the command climate surveys, do you, as an 
entity, do any comparing/contrasting of the command climate 
surveys as it relates to different commands to look for trends?
    Mr. Swecker. We looked at all the different commands on 
Fort Hood----
    Mr. Bergman. I am talking about exter--you take what you 
have at Fort Hood. You have the geographical confines of a 
base. What you see there, are there any--is there any analysis 
done that could compare and contrast what you are finding at 
Fort Hood as a whole as it might compare and contrast to other 
major installations--Fort Bragg, Fort Carson, Fort Drum, 
whatever?
    Mr. Swecker. The short answer is, it can be done; we didn't 
do that.
    Mr. Bergman. Okay. Next question. Is there any data that 
suggests that the type of warfighting unit that is based at 
Fort Hood, whether it is infantry, artillery, aviation, 
whatever it happens to be--is there any data that suggests 
trends within a type of warfighting unit? Again, in the 
simplest terms, you know, infantry battalion versus aviation 
squadron, something like that.
    Mr. White. There is not data, but there are ways to look at 
the various units and extrapolate that----
    Mr. Bergman. Okay. So the point is, to date, you haven't 
done a compare and contrast. That is okay. It is not good or 
bad. It is just, I wanted to know if you had, you know, done 
that. You were a little busy here trying to get the data and 
relative perspective at Fort Hood.
    Mr. Swecker. We compared to other installations--for 
instance, Fort Bragg, Fort Campbell, where there are heavy 
Special Forces. There were some differences.
    Mr. Bergman. Okay.
    Mr. Swecker. We did 49 research projects. I couldn't--you 
know, there is no time to go into all of them, but we saw 
differences between the Special Forces bases and----
    Mr. Bergman. Yeah. I would be interested, you know, at some 
future point, if there is data available. It doesn't have to be 
in a hearing form, but, you know, written, what you have, we 
will digest that.
    And, with that, Madam Chair, I would like to yield the rest 
of my time to Mr. Kelly.
    Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Bergman--General Bergman.
    I want to go back just a little bit about the lip service. 
And having served for almost 35 years this month, that is 
exactly what is happening. You hit the nail on the head. And so 
we have got to address that so that we are not checking a box 
but we are actually putting command emphasis and we are 
actually accomplishing things. Because the OPTEMPO is part of 
the issue. Because all you are worried about is taking soldiers 
downrange and bringing them back alive, not understanding that 
sometimes checking the block prevents you from doing exactly 
that.
    I want to talk just a little bit about the SARCs coming in 
and being civilians. And I don't care if they are civilians. I 
think you can also make a separate branch--i.e., the IG branch 
or the adjutant general's branch--where people are in that and 
they are not necessarily answerable to the chain of command, 
like an IG is not. When an IG comes in, that commander cannot 
tell him or her what to look at and what not to. They have 
their own IG chain of command which takes care of that.
    So these SARCs, whether it is a branch or whether--I think 
there is a lot of water that can be carried in that pail. So if 
you can articulate whether it is okay to be civilians or 
whether it would be good to have a branch where people--it is a 
branch to be a sexual assault or sexual--would that be helpful?
    Mr. White. Representative Kelly, a good analogy is SQIs 
[special qualification identifiers]. Drill sergeants have a 
special qualifi--not only drill sergeants; EO [equal 
opportunity] representatives, IGs. The Army knows how to treat 
a program as important and grow people up through the ranks 
through that. So, if you look at an NCO and he has a recruiting 
patch, you know that he is DA [Department of the Army] selected 
and he has a special qualifications identifier.
    In addition to that, the Trial Defense Service and the U.S. 
Army Combat Readiness Center, or the safety program, they are 
good analogs, because they are paths that are parallel to the 
command that support the command. Not necessarily a separate 
branch, but they are a department within the Army that supports 
the chain of command.
    Ms. Speier. Mr. Swecker, did you have a following comment 
to make?
    Mr. Swecker. Yeah. Our recommendations center on creating a 
very strong SHARP program office at the corps level, a program 
office that has some actual teeth to it.
    And if we were to say that--we looked very hard at the SARC 
position, because it is a very critical position. And we would 
have gone against our own findings if we had said, let's keep 
this green-suit. The reason for that was, we had enough 
information about fear of retaliation, lack of confidence, lack 
of confidentiality, and reprisals and that sort of thing--and 
this had been going on, you know, since 2014--that we felt like 
we had to civilianize the SARC position but also offer at the 
corps level a green-suit alternative for victims that wanted to 
go that route.
    So we were looking for something that was practical and 
doable, not something that was sort of theoretical and 
esoteric.
    Ms. Speier. All right. Thank you.
    Ms. Escobar, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Madam Chair, for this very 
important hearing.
    And, Mr. Swecker and to the entire team, thank you for the 
incredible work that you have done and for the report that you 
have provided us. These events at Fort Hood have been 
incredibly tragic, and there are many families who are still 
grieving and, obviously, whose lives have been devastated as a 
result of the absolute breakdown of what needed to happen at 
Fort Hood. So thank you for the roadmap that you have given us.
    Mr. Swecker, I want to talk a little bit about missing 
persons. You mentioned that those first 24 hours after someone 
goes missing are critical, and if there is not a recognition of 
the critical nature of it, then, you know, you lose precious 
time, and, obviously, the consequences can be--the tragedy can 
be compounded.
    In my district, El Paso, Fort Bliss, we are still searching 
for Private Richard Halliday. And he was initially listed as 
AWOL. His family wasn't even informed for 36 days that he had 
gone missing. He has still yet to be found.
    There have been changes made. Obviously, I am wondering, is 
that enough? Are there more things that Congress needs to do, 
more things that the Army needs to do, when it comes to 
addressing the issue of missing persons?
    Mr. Swecker. We actually think that the protocols that the 
Army has rolled out are good ones. They start in hour one. That 
was missing when we went through our review. That was something 
that we were surprised at, because the Army has protocols and 
procedures for everything. What they didn't have was, what do 
you do when someone fails to report? How does the first-line 
NCO identify whether that is suspicious? Do they have the 
judgment and the skill and the training to understand that 
there is something different about this failure to report?
    So there were no protocols. And, again, I don't think this 
is something you can legislate. I think the Army can take care 
of this, and they have.
    The other part of it is getting the NCOs to know their 
soldiers. And that was a piece that we felt like is an 
intangible that is hard to measure, but we saw it--we felt it, 
we saw it, we heard it anecdotally. The NCOs need to know where 
to go. What is going on in their lives? Where do they live off-
barracks? Who are their family members? Who are their friends? 
And we did not see enough of that, the NCOs being in close 
touch and knowing their charges well enough to understand where 
to find them when they went missing.
    Ms. Escobar. I appreciate that. Thank you.
    I want to talk also about the fear of reporting sexual 
offenses. On this committee, we have heard that over and over 
again. In my district, I have heard that over and over again. 
In conversations with other military members, have heard that 
over and over again. And so you are absolutely right; this idea 
that there needs to be a culture change is so critical. And 
that is why I was so glad to see that the extensive interviews 
were a part of your methodology.
    Now, if Congress were to focus--and, you know, I know, as 
you mentioned, a lot of this can't be legislated; it has to 
come from within the organization. But if Congress were to 
focus on one key reform to begin changing the culture, in terms 
of reporting sexual offenses, sexual assault, sexual 
harassment, et cetera, what would that be?
    Mr. Swecker. So, with your permission, can I pass that 
question off to Ms. Queta Rodriguez?
    Ms. Escobar. Ms. Rodriguez.
    Ms. Rodriguez. Thank you, Congresswoman Escobar.
    As Mr. Swecker mentioned, we really believe that this 
cultural change has to start from the top. As you see in the 
report, we have mentioned that, while people at the corps level 
may have the best intentions, the culture of ensuring that 
every single soldier exhibits the Army's core values is 
completed down to the most junior levels, where it is needed 
the most and where most of the victims of sexual assault and 
sexual harassment take place, it is not happening.
    I don't know that there is something that Congress can do 
legislatively to change that, but I think that the Army 
leadership has received that message and has really shown a 
commitment to ensuring that they are doing that.
    During the time that we were there, there was a stand-down 
on Fort Hood, where they were going to set aside time--as you 
know, the operations tempo has been a very, very significant 
piece of why we believe that soldiers aren't getting to know--
or NCOs aren't getting to know their soldiers as we would 
expect and as maybe we have seen in the past. So time set aside 
for them to do that is critical, despite operation tempo. 
Because, at the end of the day, you know, you are not ready, 
the force is not ready, if your people are not taken care of.
    And I think that the Army has gotten that message, and I 
believe that they are taking necessary actions to address that.
    Mr. Swecker. And might I add, Congresswoman Davis brought 
up, I think, a really good point a minute ago about the climate 
surveys. They are a great indicator of what is going on at the 
troop level, at the company level, at the squad level. And if 
they were actually used, they could be valuable tools to make 
changes, because they are a great way to test the temperature.
    Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much.
    Madam Chair, I yield back.
    Ms. Speier. Thank you.
    Could we just drill down on that for 1 minute? These 
climate surveys, what did you--what were you able to pull out 
of these climate surveys that alarmed you? Can you just give us 
one example or two?
    Mr. Swecker. Well, I think probably one of the most stark 
examples was the situation involving SHARP knowledge of 
reporting and fear of retaliation and that sort of thing.
    There was a section devoted exclusively to SHARP 
indicators, and one of them was knowledge. And it wasn't just a 
question, do you have knowledge of the SHARP program; it was a 
five-question quiz on the difference between restricted and 
unrestricted reports, about victim counsel. Five very easy 
questions were asked and answered.
    And in some of the units, the passing rate was about 45 
percent. It was red. It was flashing red. In most cases, it was 
yellow. We recommended they actually raise the bar. Passing 
ought to be, you know, right around 65 percent, not 50 percent. 
So, in the most important units, the largest units on the base, 
the passing rates on the little mini quiz were depressing. I 
mean, they were somewhere, anywhere between 45 and 60 percent 
passing.
    Now, the number that answered the question--in one 
particular large unit, the number that answered all five 
questions correctly was 20 percent.
    The other one was fear of retaliation. We saw pretty stark 
red and yellow blocks, for the 1st Cavalry Division and the 3d 
Cavalry Regiment, that were, again, red and yellow, especially 
in the enlisted ranks and especially among women. Because you 
can break it down, and it does break it down in a lot of 
different ways. It is incredibly rich information that just 
wasn't used.
    Ms. Speier. Thank you.
    Mr. Gaetz, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Gaetz. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    And I just wanted to start by offering some gratitude and 
appreciation for your efforts. The last thing I did before 
joining the subcommittee hearing was review the list of 
northwest Floridians that I will be nominating to service 
academies, and I was heartened to see how many women are on 
that list. And I know that, should they go on to military 
service, their time will be better thanks to your efforts and 
your diligent focus on this.
    And I would want to ask a question to Ms. Ricci, from the 
JAG perspective, on the recommendations that directly reflect 
on the code and how the code might change and how the Congress 
might have to be involved in the NDAA [National Defense 
Authorization Act] in those changes. I wanted to give you the 
opportunity to speak to that.
    Ms. Ricci. There is one thing that concerns me. I know in 
the 2019 NDAA there was a provision--I don't remember the exact 
language, but it basically requires disclosure to the victim of 
a sexual assault so that that victim will know the final 
resolution. The issue that I found in reviewing this is that, 
when the final resolution is an administrative action, that is 
considered a personnel action. So that is not public record, 
and the assailant has privacy rights in his or her personnel 
record.
    So, when the determination is made of what can be relayed 
to the victim, ALD [Administrative Law Division] legal offices 
are not seeing that as taking precedent over the FOIA [Freedom 
of Information Act]. And, under FOIA, the privacy rights of the 
assailant may take priority, depending on how you conduct your 
legal analysis.
    So my concern there is that, although there is that 
provision, if FOIA is a higher precedent, then perhaps victims 
won't always--they still will not always know. They may be 
informed that there was some consideration of administrative 
action, but they may not get the final decision. And it is very 
difficult for a victim to go through the process and to have 
hope, only to be told, ``We can't tell you what happened in the 
end.''
    That is one area that I would want to make the Congress 
aware of.
    Mr. Gaetz. Thank you.
    And, Mr. Swecker, when we debate these issues during the 
NDAA, we are always having to balance the need for buy-in from 
the chain of command against a lot of the information you have 
been providing us today regarding concerns about retaliation 
and utilization of the chain of command for reporting. And, you 
know, I tend to lean on the experience of folks like the 
ranking member and General Bergman, who are very familiar with 
the positives that come with reinforcing that chain of command 
to solve problems.
    And so I wanted to ask you, you know, is the essence of 
your testimony today that, in the absence of breaking the chain 
of command, we haven't seen the cultural buy-in to solve these 
problems, based on your survey results? Is that a fair read on 
your testimony?
    Mr. Swecker. Yeah. We know that the command jealously 
guards its responsibility for the well-being of its troops and 
adjudication especially. So we drew a distinction between 
reporting and adjudication. Reporting, we think, can go heavily 
civilian. But adjudication, we think, still needs to reside 
with the command.
    We recommend in sexual harassment cases that the 
investigation go to another brigade outside the brigade, but we 
tend to leave the adjudication piece with the command itself, 
because that is their responsibility.
    But we think that the reporting part--we want to get the 
reports in. We want to have uninhibited reporting without fear 
of reprisal. And that is why we took it up to the corps level 
and brigade level and we basically recommend taking it out of 
the battalion, company, et cetera.
    But we also need to have someone monitoring the 
adjudications and the timing of the adjudications, because they 
are slow. The investigation is slow. There are a lot of delays 
in the process. The opine of probable cause, from when the 
handoff goes from CID to the military justice advisor sometimes 
lasts--well, there is a gap of 120 days. There is a 14-day MOU 
[memorandum of understanding] that ought to probably be 
legislated within the UCMJ [Uniform Code of Military Justice] 
to make sure that that opinion is rendered--of probable cause 
is rendered within 14 days and there is no delay. You know, 120 
days is a long time to wait for the case to move forward.
    But nobody is tracking, start to finish, how long it takes 
and where the off-ramps are taken to go administrative instead 
of court martial and that sort of thing. So somebody needs to 
be watching over that, and nobody is.
    Mr. Gaetz. Yeah. I would just suggest that hard and fast 
times in the adjudication process always have to be balanced 
against due process. You know, in the recommendations I have 
seen, it seems you hold due process up as a very high standard, 
and as we legislate around these very complex issues, it is my 
hope that the Congress will, in fact, recognize that we have to 
give the accused rights as well so that we don't have the 
system overburdened by claims that are retaliatory claims at 
their outset rather than true instances that we need to be able 
to address.
    I thank the chair's indulgence, and I yield back.
    Ms. Speier. I thank you.
    Mrs. Trahan, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Trahan. Madam Chair, thank you for holding this 
hearing and for your longstanding commitment to combating 
sexual assault. [Inaudible] that nearly 30 years after 
[inaudible] we still don't have sufficient safeguards and 
cultural norms to prevent these abhorrent acts. And, you know, 
it is unconscionable that a young man or a young woman with the 
courage to serve our Nation in uniform could be subject to such 
dehumanizing behavior.
    First, to our witnesses, I want to thank you all at the 
outset for your commitment to this thorough review. I know you 
all had to put aside your personal lives and day jobs for 
months to undertake this critical task. I believe it is a push 
in the right direction for real change within the U.S. Army and 
the rest of the force at large.
    You know, year after year, Congress receives a budget 
request from the Pentagon for hundreds of billions of dollars 
to secure our Nation. But they fail to make the connection 
between the health and safety of our troops and the National 
Defense Strategy. And if we are going to continue making this 
investment, there must be an understanding that our military 
leaders will take care of our heroes under their command.
    You know, just yesterday, the House voted overwhelmingly to 
pass the NDAA for fiscal 2021. With it comes a mandate to 
implement additional protections for our brave service members 
because of this subcommittee's persistent efforts. That 
includes a ``safe to report'' policy across the services, 
enabling victims to report sexual assault without fear of 
punishment, and confidential reporting of sexual harassment 
outside of the chain of command. But what your report makes 
clear is that we have so much more work to do.
    So, Mr. Swecker, you know, I guess I will start with, you 
know, the deaths of Specialist Vanessa Guillen, Sergeant Elder 
Fernandes most recently, and so many others, we know that they 
were preventable. No service member should have to choose 
between protecting their life or their career and reporting the 
person who assaulted them because they believe the system will 
fail them.
    I am curious, Mr. Swecker or the entire panel, to what 
extent you extended your investigation to examine the case of 
Sergeant Elder Fernandes. And he was a soldier from 
Massachusetts who was found dead near Fort Hood after seeking 
in-patient psychiatric treatment and reporting to his superiors 
that he was a victim of sexual harassment.
    Mr. Swecker. I personally reviewed his investigative file, 
of Elder Fernandes, and we were briefed by CID on the case 
itself.
    You know, we had some deep concerns, and I go back to the 
inexperience, in some cases, of CID. In this case, his alleged 
harasser was exonerated basically on a polygraph. And that 
wasn't--I just don't have a whole--I personally don't have a 
lot of faith in the polygraph. We felt like that should not be 
the sole criteria in exonerating somebody on sexual harassment.
    But, again, we sort of go back to the conundrum of CID in 
terms of rapid investigation, experienced investigators, and 
that sort of thing. We want to see every suicide investigated 
to the nth degree so we can understand what happened.
    And that happened off-base, so they relied on the Killeen 
Police Department to do the investigation, and they monitored 
the investigation. We think that they ought to be doing more 
joint investigations, true joint investigations. But you can't 
do that if you don't have experienced agents. You don't put a 
brand-new agent alongside a 20-year detective because they 
just--I was told that they just don't feel confident enough to 
do that.
    Mrs. Trahan. And I didn't mean to put you on the spot with 
one particular case, but, you know, one thing we learned after 
the horrendous disappearance and death of Sergeant Elder 
Fernandes was that Fort Hood lacked consistent and speedy 
processes to report missing individuals and to share critical 
information in real time with family members. You know, many of 
the questions remain unanswered to this day.
    And so I am wondering if you have recommendations that 
increase transparency and information-sharing with families of 
those who are literally fighting to get information on the 
whereabouts of their loved ones or other information on a case 
like this.
    Mr. Swecker. You know, I think Queta handled--I view that 
as a public relations situation, and let me pass that one off 
to Queta.
    Or, actually, was it Carrie?
    Ms. Ricci. We did not make recommendations specific to 
that, specific to--but what we did talk about was the absence 
of a human touch.
    With dealing with that type of situation, we used the 
Guillen family as sort of our model to look at what happened 
there and to say that there needs to be that human touch in 
dealing with families. And that was not evident at Fort Hood. 
It was very clinical, and the manner in which families are--the 
communication flow was not done very well.
    Ms. Speier. All right.
    Mrs. Trahan. One----
    Ms. Speier. Do you have a quick additional question?
    Mrs. Trahan. You know, I just had a quick question, because 
the issues around this case are a little different. And I was 
just wondering if, as a part of your investigation into the 
SHARP program, if you discovered deficiencies in the mental 
health resources that were offered on- and off-base to soldiers 
and their families.
    I mean, I am just hoping that you could talk a little bit 
about your findings, if your findings revealed proactive mental 
health exams throughout the Army. This was clearly the case 
with Sergeant Fernandes.
    Mr. Swecker. It was definitely a factor in Sergeant 
Fernandes and many other cases, including Specialist Robinson.
    So let me pass this to Carrie Ricci for just a quick 
response.
    Ms. Ricci. I did look into behavioral health. And the good 
news is that there are a myriad of avenues where soldiers can 
get quality mental health. The bad news is that soldiers don't 
always have confidence that they can go to seek mental health. 
And so there is an educational piece that needs to be had 
there.
    We also noted that, with the embedded behavioral health 
specialist, there is such a connection to the command that the 
language that was actually used when talking to us was, ``Our 
command, our first priority is to return the soldier to duty,'' 
which seemed to be--really, the first priority should be to 
make the soldier whole. I think that is really what they 
intended, but it came out as ``to return the soldier to duty.''
    So there are at least four different avenues that soldiers 
at Fort Hood can take to get quality mental health. It is 
available. But whether they are taking it because they don't 
have the confidence that it is going to be--that it might hurt 
their career--some even thought it might hurt them later in 
civilian life, which is not accurate. But there were 
inaccuracies there. Or whether they were not able to get to 
appointments because they were told, ``You have to deploy.'' 
So, you know, although it is there, it is not fully 
implemented.
    And the last thing that I think is very important, when we 
talked about the suicide, there wasn't always a crosswalk 
between behavioral health specialist and the suicide files. And 
there is so much to be learned there. And in reading Chris's 
write-up on that, there is so much to be learned in reviewing 
those files. And that also needs to be done.
    Mr. Swecker. Of the 50 suicide files that I reviewed, there 
were obvious mental health issues in many of them, and I think 
there were only a handful that actually had seen or been to a 
mental health professional.
    Ms. Speier. We are going to ask you to explore that 
further.
    Mrs. Trahan, let me just point out to you that Secretary of 
the Army McCarthy has stated, unless there is a preponderance 
of evidence that a soldier's absence is voluntary, they will 
not be classifying them as AWOL. Instead, they will be the 
classified as ``duty status--whereabouts unknown.'' And the 
soldier's family will be assigned a liaison officer 
immediately.
    All right. Let's move forward.
    Mr. Cisneros, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Cisneros. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    And thanks to the review committee for all your hard work, 
going out there to Fort Hood in order to, you know, do this 
service that is so important not only for the Army but our 
entire country and our service members.
    Mr. Swecker, I want to start with a question. When we went 
to a CODEL to go down to Fort Hood and visit and we talked to 
some junior sailors, you know, I asked them about 
fraternization. And a lot of them, these E-1s to E-3s, were 
talking about there was a lot of it going on, where there were, 
you know, E-5s to E-7s that were hanging out with the E-1s, the 
E-3s, you know, kind of making inappropriate comments at the 
time and kind of using the excuse as, well, we are just kind of 
hanging out.
    Did you find fraternization as a factor in a lot of the 
sexual assaults or sexual harassment? And what recommendations 
do you have that can be put in place in order to stop this?
    Mr. Swecker. Let me pass that question to Jon Harmon, who 
is a former military officer and can address that effectively, 
I think.
    Mr. Harmon. Representative Cisneros, we did--oh, let me 
turn this on. Thank you.
    Representative Cisneros, we did, both in the group 
interviews that we did, about 1,800 people, and in many of the 
individual interviews, come across many, many of our soldiers 
who had been either sexually assaulted or sexually harassed by 
NCOs within their chain of command or people who were under 
their supervision.
    Primarily from what our data shows is that most of the 
sexual assaults occurred between people who were close to the 
same rank, and it was within the lower ranks. That is where 
most of them were occurring. But we did come across many 
different incidents where the chain of command was being used; 
they were being predators, in other words, of the more junior 
soldiers.
    And so you will see in the report that, you know--and this 
came up, I think, from Ranking Member Kelly--one of the big 
issues that was cultural that is a huge issue that is--it can't 
happen in the Army--is that the leaders not only didn't know 
their soldiers, some of the NCOs, but because of the operation 
tempo, because of all the other things that were going on, 
there was a general sense across the board--we looked at, you 
know, over 1,000 of the enlisted folks, and they would say 
their leadership didn't care.
    And so part of, you know, addressing this issue of 
fraternization, in my view and in the view of the committee, is 
changing the culture so that the frontline leaders know and 
care about all of the soldiers under their command.
    I will just tell a quick story that I think illustrates 
what we want to have happen. This was an outlier, but there was 
a young soldier in one of the brigades, and she was so positive 
about her chain of command, because when she came in her leader 
told her, ``All the people around, this is your squad-mate. 
Nothing under my command will happen to her, no matter where we 
go.'' And she told stories about being in the field and being 
concerned that the other--you know, she was in a support unit; 
she came with others. And the people in that squad, because of 
leadership, they would literally at night sleep around her 
because of that particular leader.
    Those stories were far and few between, but you will see in 
the findings that one of the things that has to change in order 
to make that not happen is a cultural change with many of the 
things that are in findings 1 and 2.
    Mr. Cisneros. All right. I agree. And, you know, we need to 
make sure that the senior leaders, whether they be enlisted or 
officers, they need to know who the--you know, whether or not 
they are soldiers or sailors or Marines; it doesn't matter what 
service it is--whether they had children, their spouses' names, 
about them. That is more important than, kind of, hanging out 
and having a drink with them.
    Mr. Swecker, one other question. You know, you already 
highlighted the problems with CID on the base, how there is a 
lot of junior people there, it is being used as a training 
ground.
    But I am curious, in your investigative experience and that 
of the committee--you know, the CID is--they are uniformed 
personnel. They are part of the chain of command. You know, 
they are all in the Army. Do you think they would be better 
served if it was an independent Federal law agency that was 
overseeing these investigations for the Army rather than 
military personnel?
    Mr. Swecker. So they are not uniformed. They are 
plainclothes special agents. But they are----
    Mr. Cisneros. Right. But they are----
    Mr. Swecker. They are enlisted, and they are warrant 
officers.
    Mr. Cisneros. Right. They are enlisted, and they are 
members of the----
    Mr. Swecker. And therein lies the conundrum, because they 
are subject to transfer, they are subject to deployment, they 
are subject to being pulled away for training, for field 
training, and that sort of thing.
    So, yeah, you are hitting on a very strong point here. From 
an investigative standpoint, there needs to be continuity, and 
there needs to be a stable force of experienced agents. And in 
my--I think all of us discussed this. We think there need to be 
more 1811 civilian investigators within CID so that you can 
balance out. In fact, a preponderance of investigators should 
be 1811s.
    They don't move around. They have experience. They pretty 
much stay on that post. And they can mentor. If you want to 
have younger agents moving through and less experienced agents 
moving through, they can be the stable force that mentors them 
and creates institutional experience and skill.
    So I hate to make comparisons to other military branches, 
but NCS [Naval Criminal Investigative Service] is almost all 
1811s. And, you know, I don't want to go much further than 
that. We are not saying that is what needs to be done. But you 
need a stable, very experienced workforce and not a 
preponderance of brand-spanking-new agents moving through.
    Mr. Cisneros. Thank you very much. And thank you all for 
your hard work.
    I yield back.
    Ms. Speier. Thank you, Mr. Cisneros.
    We will now have Ms. Garcia for 5 minutes. You are 
recognized.
    Ms. Garcia. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    And, first, I want to thank you for the opportunity to 
participate today and your unwavering commitment in helping me 
and the Guillen family to get justice for my constituent, 
Vanessa Guillen. I am committed to working together with you 
and all the stakeholders to make sure we can make real, 
permanent change to keep all our service members safe.
    First, I want to thank the review panel. I truly appreciate 
the work here. That was a lot of pages to try to read. I got 
the report yesterday. I didn't quite finish, but I will 
eventually. But from what I have read, I think this is a really 
great first step. I think the proof will be in the pudding. We 
have to make sure that we keep our eye on the ball and we keep 
our oversight function here in this committee and in the 
Congress to ensure that all those recommendations are fully 
implemented.
    Frankly, I think this report validates a lot of the things 
that the Guillen family said and many of us here in Congress 
have been talking about. So there were no real big surprises.
    But I do want to start with just a simple question about--
and I want to build on what Representative Trahan was talking 
about, in terms of working with the families. That is how I got 
involved. The family came to me as their Member of Congress.
    First of all, no member should have to go to a Member of 
Congress to try to get answers. That should happen from day 
one. I am heartened that there is the new policy now on missing 
persons and that there is the suggestion that the status be 
changed and that the next of kin will be notified within 8 
hours.
    I think that what is missing, though--and I was hopeful 
that you all would have a recommendation, and I wondered why 
there wasn't. Just as you noted about the missing-person 
situation, that unless there was a guide and a protocol, that 
it might be haphazard and that things would not happen, I feel 
the same way about notification. Because just saying, you know, 
let the next of kin know--and then the checklist says: Have 
next of kin been contacted? Which commander is designated? What 
is the engagement? Again, we are going to a checklist.
    We need more than human contact. We need real transparency. 
We need to make sure that the families know almost immediately. 
Eight hours is probably soon enough. I would love it to be 
better. But what type of communication?
    In the Vanessa Guillen case, the Army has said, ``Yes, we 
talked to them. We sent a text.'' Never should a text be a way 
of communicating--never, ever.
    So why did you all not include a recommendation to have a 
policy that actually tells them what they should be doing, 
similar to what you did in the missing-person policy?
    Mr. White. May I?
    Mr. Swecker. Go ahead. Yes.
    Mr. White. Representative Garcia, I, too, spent hours with 
the Guillen family. Along with Ms. Ricci, we----
    Ms. Garcia. I am sure probably not as much as I have.
    Mr. White. Oh, no, no. But the purpose was, you know, you, 
as their--as one of your constituents, your focus was surely 
different from ours. Ours was to look through the lens of the 
command climate and how the interaction between the Army and 
the Guillen family was reflective of the command climate.
    Our conclusion was--and we have said this in very clear 
terms to the Army--that there needs to be a greater human 
touch.
    Ms. Garcia. But what does that mean?
    Mr. White. Because--well----
    Ms. Garcia. Unless you tell them, then they will go back to 
checking the box.
    Mr. White. No.
    Mr. Garcia. Yes, sir, they will.
    Mr. White. Oh. What it means is----
    Ms. Garcia. That is my concern. That is my observation 
after getting calls from 40 different families around the 
country after they saw the ``20/20'' report. You know, we have 
gotten calls from all over the country. You know, you have got 
women who have posted on Facebook, women who have posted on 
Twitter.
    This is a serious, serious issue. And I just feel like 
there should be a policy that specifically addresses it, 
because, if not, then it will continue to be haphazard.
    Mr. White. What I mean is and what the report indicates is 
that there were instances where what was really going on was 
not what the family's perception was. And it was a little bit 
difficult, interacting with the family, to hear what their 
perception was and to know what was actually going on in the 
investigation at the same time. And it was not our role to 
bridge that gap. But the lack of human touch impeded the 
ability to communicate exactly what the Army was doing and the 
level of concern that actually existed.
    Now, I am not defending the Army, but we have spoken with 
the Army. And the last 5 of the recommendations, out of the 70, 
speak to that. They speak to----
    Ms. Garcia. But can I just ask a quick followup, Madam 
Chair?
    Because I think, with the Guillen family--and I had the 
question from Ms. Rodriguez, but they are now in--it says up 
there you are Ms. Rodriguez.
    Do you think the Army is really not only prepared to talk 
to families but also to be able to talk with families in a 
culturally and linguistic appropriate manner? Because I think 
that was a huge problem in this case too, and, quite frankly, 
with some of the other cases, because, regrettably, a lot of 
the cases, particularly the deaths, do have Spanish surnames 
and they are Spanish-speaking people. But when they saw us 
again on ``20/20,'' that is why they called us, because they 
knew we spoke Spanish.
    Mr. White. That was part of the problem. Part of the 
problem was cultural. There were specific events that 
transpired where the Army thought that it was doing something 
charitable.
    For example, the Army--the unit, Specialist Guillen's unit, 
tried to give to the family a care package that was put 
together by the unit's family-readiness organization. Now, that 
was not well-received, because it felt to the family a lot like 
charity.
    Ms. Garcia. Sure.
    Mr. White. And why did they want charity when their 
daughter was missing? Mrs. Guillen said to me, ``I didn't want 
charity. I wanted my daughter.'' That was indelicate.
    When they were funeralizing their daughter, Mrs. Guillen 
wanted to visit the arms room and pray where her daughter had 
been killed. And the unit didn't get how important that was to 
that mommy, to say goodbye to her daughter and to pray in the 
spot where her daughter was killed. That was worse than 
indelicate.
    Ms. Garcia. Oh, I am well aware of that, and that is why I 
am asking the questions. The Army must build back better.
    Mr. White. Must do it better.
    Ms. Garcia. Thank you.
    Ms. Speier. All right. Your time has expired.
    Mr. Lynch, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Madam Chair, and to the ranking 
member.
    Madam Chair, I want to especially thank you for the 
relentless loyalty that you have shown to our sons and 
daughters in uniform and the work that you have done over many 
years. And I appreciate you allowing me to participate in your 
CODEL down to Fort Hood. I have been down there a few times, 
but with you was an honor, and I think it was very productive.
    I want to thank the Independent Review Committee for your 
work. I chair the Subcommittee on National Security over in 
Oversight, so I have done a lot of investigations myself, 
mostly Iraq and Afghanistan. But I know how difficult it is to 
do 647 interviews. Over 500 women interviewed. The surveys, 
31,000 surveys--that data will be extremely valuable in moving 
forward, because the work continues.
    Now, I happen to represent the city of Brockton, 
Massachusetts, and it is the proud home of Sergeant Elder 
Fernandes and his family. His loss to that family and to that 
community was devastating, and it continues to be.
    And I hope in some way that your work and our work, the 
chairman's work, in some way is keeping faith with these young 
men and women who decided to put on the uniform of our country, 
right? When you think about the spirit in which they put on 
that uniform to serve this country, we owe them. We owe them. 
We owe them the truth and the honesty. We owe them the 
responsibility to take corrective action, to make sure that 
when a family supports their son's or daughter's decision to 
serve, that they are not going into a bad place. And for some 
time, Fort Hood was a bad place. And I think we are making 
progress here, but the work continues.
    One thing that my colleague, Mrs. Trahan, also of 
Massachusetts, brought up, and it was brought up during our 
CODEL in Texas by Katherine Clark and myself, is the use of 
polygraphs. And, you know, I have been around long enough to 
know that George H.W. Bush banned those in military trials back 
in, I think, 1998 or something like that. And yet, when we met 
with CID down in Texas, they said that they--and I notice you 
have called them out, because there were a number of 
inexperienced special agents who, as you put it, failed to 
pursue all logical investigative leads. So they told us that 
they had been using these polygraphs hundreds of times in their 
own instance and probably thousands of times across the 
service.
    So, you know, I know that under the Army regulations, 196-
6, it does allow polygraphs, but findings may not be based 
solely on polygraph results. I think it is especially poignant 
that Rule 707 of the courts-martial manual reads that ``the 
results of a polygraph examination, the polygraph examiner's 
opinion, or any reference to an offer to take, failure to take, 
or taking of a polygraph examination is not admissible'' in 
those proceedings.
    In this case--in this case--they came back very quickly. So 
Sergeant Fernandes had made a claim of sexual harassment, and 
CID came back very quickly. I originally was on the way down to 
help in the search. By the time I got there, they had already 
made a decision that the claim was not valid, the claim of 
harassment was not valid, based in large part on this 
polygraph. They did it so quickly.
    So I just think that I would have liked to see a finding or 
a recommendation regarding the use of polygraphs by the 
military, especially in cases where the results of that 
polygraph is having such a heavy influence on a sexual 
harassment claim or a sexual assault claim.
    And I just would like to get your thoughts on that.
    Mr. Swecker. Well, Congressman, we could have had 200 
recommendations if we wanted to get so deep into the weeds on 
things like that.
    What we were trying to get at with CID was--and I agree 
with you; no disposition of any case should be based on a 
polygraph. It is an investigative tool. It is not a way to 
dispose of a case in any fashion, and it is imperfect in so 
many different ways. That is why it is not admissible in a 
court of law.
    So what we were trying to say was, any experienced agent, 
5-, 10-year agent, would know that you don't dispose of a case 
strictly on a polygraph. You get a lot of he-said/she-said 
cases, and I think there is a tendency to get a little bit--to 
think that, ``well, we will just use a polygraph and that will 
decide it for us.'' It is just not--that is not the way it is 
supposed to be used.
    So I agree with you, it is a problem. It shouldn't be used 
that way. We know that it was used that way in the Fernandes 
case, and it shouldn't have. We just didn't get that deep in 
the weeds on it, to be honest with you, with our 
recommendations. We felt like experienced agents would just 
know that, and the point being: We need more experienced agents 
within CID.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you.
    Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
    Ms. Speier. I thank the gentleman.
    Ms. Haaland, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Haaland. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you 
for convening this panel today.
    This issue affects not only Fort Hood but, overall, our 
national security. We are weaker as a Nation if we cannot 
protect the women who serve our country. The service members 
who participated in a culture of sexual harassment at Fort Hood 
will not just stay at Fort Hood but they will continue to be 
stationed at bases across our country and around the world and 
take that culture with them.
    While I am glad that Secretary McCarthy appointed you all 
to the Independent Review Commission, I am disappointed it took 
Vanessa Guillen's death to move this action.
    So my first question. I heard the news that 14 officers and 
enlisted service members who contributed to the problems at 
Fort Hood were fired, and I believe that action was 
appropriate.
    But, in your opinion, are these firings sufficient to fix 
the issues at the base that have long preceded this summer? Are 
we to believe that these 14 individuals alone created and 
maintained such a dangerous atmosphere at the base and now that 
it is safe to say that people are safe after this action?
    Mr. Harmon. Representative Haaland, I will take that 
question.
    The answer is, no, that the Army's decision in the wake of 
our report to fire or suspend the 14 people is going to change 
the culture and to solve the problem at Fort Hood. It is going 
to take a lot more work, a lot more oversight. I think as 
everybody recognizes, changing culture is hard, and it doesn't 
come from just firing 14 people.
    And our report, I think, was very clear that the problems 
at Fort Hood were not the result of one commander, they were 
not the result of one administration, but it was really the 
result of years of benign neglect in the area of sexual 
harassment and sexual assault and a lack of focus, a lack of 
accountability, a lack of commitment and engagement that caused 
these issues.
    In part, you know, I think, as has been mentioned, they 
divorced the SHARP program from caring about soldiers. So, as 
you have heard from Ms. Ricci and Ms. Rodriguez, it became 
check the box. And so, rather than view protecting soldiers, 
making sure there wasn't sexual harassment and sexual assault 
as part of esprit de corps, as part of unit readiness, it 
became something else to do.
    And so that is going to take time to change, because it has 
been baked into the culture----
    Ms. Haaland. Thank you.
    Mr. Harmon [continuing]. But I think I speak for the 
committee that we are encouraged of the actions the Army has 
taken, and we believe they are committed to change.
    Ms. Haaland. Thank you.
    Mr. Swecker. May I make one quick important point, 
Congresswoman?
    Ms. Haaland. Yes.
    Mr. Swecker. This morning, we were asked by the Secretary 
of the Army to present to all the four-stars and three-stars in 
the Army, all 300, on this very issue, and I can tell you that 
the action on the 14 got their attention. It actually surprised 
us. We didn't expect to see that. We specifically put in our 
report that this was across a series of commands and it would 
be very hard to fix responsibility on one commander.
    However, I thought the action was--we thought the action 
was decisive, and it certainly got people's attention. And the 
fact that, you know, we presented every aspect of our report 
this morning to the three-stars and the four-stars, and we feel 
like they are listening.
    Ms. Haaland. Thank you. Thank you.
    I want to ask just a quick yes-or-no question, or just a 
number. How many of the women who shared their stories of 
sexual harassment at Fort Hood on Twitter or Facebook or any 
social media site were interviewed? If anyone could answer 
that.
    Mr. Swecker. Just very quickly, we interviewed every female 
soldier in the 3d Cavalry Regiment. So we felt like we were 
very comprehensive. We interviewed about 100 within the 1st 
Cavalry Division. And then we caught, we think, most of the 
females in the survey and in the hotline, as well as the group 
interviews.
    So, if we had gone out on social media, we would still be 
there talking to people. We wanted to get the people who had 
firsthand facts.
    Ms. Haaland. Thank you.
    Madam Chair, the clock is very small, so I can't read it. I 
am not sure how much time I have left.
    Ms. Speier. You have 5 more seconds.
    Ms. Haaland. Okay. I yield back. Thank you very much.
    Ms. Speier. We are going to do a second round of questions, 
so you can stay if you would like.
    I want to ask some specific questions.
    You referenced, Mr. Swecker, that Specialist Robinson had 
mental health issues. Could you expound on that, please?
    Mr. Swecker. I can to a limited degree. There is an ongoing 
investigation. I hate to use the old ``ongoing investigation'' 
response to you. But we did--as I reviewed the Guillen file and 
in briefings from CID, we did get information that he had some 
mental health issues, pretty serious ones, some ideations that 
dealt with suicide and homicide.
    And that is the extent of my knowledge of that, but I do 
know that there were some issues. It may have come up in his 
background investigation to be an armorer, because you have to 
have a background investigation to be an armorer in the Army. 
But we really didn't get to the core of that, because some of 
that information just wasn't in the file.
    Ms. Speier. So wouldn't that disqualify him as an armorer, 
if he had suicidal ideations?
    Mr. Swecker. That may be--it would. It would, or it should. 
Again, because of the ongoing 15-6 investigation----
    Ms. Speier. I understand.
    Mr. Swecker [continuing]. We didn't want to step on that.
    Ms. Speier. Okay. Thank you.
    Do you think it would be appropriate to create an article 
in the UCMJ on sexual harassment?
    Mr. Swecker. That is a question maybe we should put to all 
five panel members. But I think it was in the report itself 
that we recommended that sexual harassment be an actual 
violation.
    Ms. Speier. Thank you.
    Mr. Harmon.
    Mr. Harmon. I do.
    Ms. Speier. Ms. Ricci.
    Ms. Ricci. I do.
    Ms. Rodriguez. I do.
    Mr. White. Yes.
    Ms. Speier. Okay.
    In the Morales case, my conversation with the mother 
suggested to me that there was basically a sense that he was a 
bad actor, so therefore he was AWOL, and they really didn't 
pursue the investigation.
    And, at one point--this happened in the summer. At one 
point late in the fall, she was basically told by CID, ``Don't 
call us anymore.''
    Now, I don't know what you gleaned from your review of the 
Morales case, but if you have anything in particular, I would 
be interested in hearing it.
    Mr. Swecker. Well, that was another file that was reviewed 
by one of the retired agents that we brought on, a very 
experienced one. I got a summary of it, and I have some 
personal--you know, I have some knowledge of that case.
    There were some complexities to the Morales case. We felt 
like there were some leads that were not followed up on that 
should have been followed up on, that experienced investigators 
would have followed up on.
    But, again, this was one of those, what they call a 
collateral that was being investigated outside by a civilian 
law enforcement agency. And we felt like that was a particular 
weakness with CID's experience level, because they could not 
embed with the local police detectives and the State and local 
law enforcement because they weren't experienced--the SAC, the 
special agent in charge, did not feel like she had experienced-
enough agents to do that.
    But, in that file, there were some very, very, we thought, 
important leads that should have been followed up on that were 
not.
    Ms. Speier. Could you specify?
    Mr. Swecker. I would rather not, because it gets into 
something that is still going on.
    Ms. Speier. I understand. Okay.
    We actually visited the location of where Mr. Morales's 
body was found, and it was a very short distance from where the 
vehicle was left abandoned. And it was never clear to me 
whether they even tested the vehicle for fingerprints or 
anything, dusted it.
    I don't know if you know anything about that.
    Mr. Swecker. Yeah, the crime scene was imperfect. It was 
not done soon enough. There were some other things that 
concerned us about that.
    Ms. Speier. All right.
    So the FORSCOM [United States Army Forces Command] 
inspector general actually produced a report in August. And he 
told us that the SHARP program was being followed, soldiers and 
leaders knew what to do, soldiers felt they could report and 
did report sexual harassment and sexual assault. Yet your 
report is a stunning indictment of the leadership of Fort Hood.
    I know you have had a chance to review the FORSCOM IG 
report. Why did you come up to such a different and startling 
set of conclusions?
    Mr. Swecker. So I will address that, and then I will pass 
it to Jack White.
    We strongly disagree with their opinion and their 
conclusion on that. But I will say that they only talked--their 
survey only covered 300 people. They didn't talk to anybody 
individually. Out of the survey, there were only 60 women that 
responded to the survey.
    We felt like it was a--it was not an abnormal look from an 
IG perspective standpoint. That is what they do. They do very 
limited--they don't do a deep dive.
    We were particularly disturbed by, sort of, the passing 
grade that they gave whenever any response to their survey was 
over, you know, 50 percent. In particular, fear of retaliation 
was around 65--you know, 65 percent said they did not fear 
retaliation. We felt like that was a failing grade, not a 
passing grade.
    So we recommended that the IG up the standards to a much 
higher level instead, of anything over 50 percent. You saw in 
that report they used things like ``most respondents,'' ``the 
majority of respondents.'' We feel like there ought to be a 
passing level of, you know, somewhere around 65 percent or 
higher, as opposed to the low bar that they set.
    So, Jack, do you have anything?
    Mr. White. So we do take issue with that IG report. But the 
issue that we take is substantive. The nature of our report was 
comprehensive. As Mr. Swecker said at the outset, thousands of 
people we talked to and looked in the eye. The FORSCOM IG 
didn't have the time or the resources to do that.
    Ms. Speier. All right. My time has expired. Thank you.
    Ranking Member Kelly, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    And I just--this is more of a comment, but I hope that you 
will modify your recommendations. You say, do it at corps 
level. Well, that is great at Fort Hood, where there is a 
corps. But if you go to Fort Campbell or Fort Belvoir or other 
places where there is not a corps-level headquarters, or Fort 
Campbell, Kentucky, where the 101st is there but their corps 
headquarters is somewhere else, I would say maybe installation 
or the highest-level unit, not necessarily corps, but whether 
that be division or some other level, that there is one of 
those at each base, not only at corps level, a green-suiter.
    And I will let you all do it. I just wanted to say that 
because I think that is important.
    Here is one of the things I want to know. Throughout my 
military career, I have seen the difference between Guard and 
Reserve units and the ownership of units and individuals within 
that unit because of the long standing. A guy can go to a 
National Guard brigade and stay there his entire career or her 
whole career.
    Many years ago, the Army went away from a regimental-type 
system where folks went to Fort Hood and they had the 
opportunity to go from E-1 to E-8 in that same regiment and 
never leave, which meant ownership of the people in that 
regiment, ownership of that regiment, ownership of the 
community, and maybe that was close to home.
    Do you think that is--now, I understand you still want to 
have broadening positions, other places, and maybe--but do you 
think maybe we need to relook whether or not it is always up 
and out and a current rotation of our service members over a 
20-year career to be at 10 bases?
    Mr. Harmon. Ranking Member Kelly, that is a very 
interesting question. I can't say that we really thought about 
that in terms of--if I understand you, you are saying to stay 
at Fort Hood from your E-1 all the way to your E-8.
    Mr. Kelly. If you want to. I think you should have 
opportunities to go other places----
    Mr. Harmon. Yeah.
    Mr. Kelly [continuing]. But what we have is very transient 
units, so there is never any ownership of the people in that 
unit. Because my squad leader today, after I deploy, I come 
back, I have a new squad leader who doesn't know me.
    Mr. Harmon. Yeah.
    Mr. Kelly. When a soldier rotates in, they rotate out to 
another unit, and they go somewhere where no one knows them.
    That soldier that--you talk about the female soldier. That 
comes straight from General McConville and straight from 
Sergeant Major Grinston. And I heard that a year ago at the 
ASEP-B [Army Strategic Education Program-Basic] course, where 
they said, ``Not in my squad.''
    Mr. Harmon. Uh-huh.
    Mr. Kelly. ``We will protect that person.'' And that is 
what the senior-level leadership--but that has not filtered all 
the way down to each soldier. But when they do buy that, ``Not 
in my squad,'' that is when we protect our own.
    And I just wonder if maybe we rotate people so much that 
they don't have ownership of the people who are in their squad.
    Mr. Harmon. Yeah. I think that could be so. But I don't 
think it addresses the problem that we saw at Fort Hood.
    Mr. Kelly. Okay.
    Mr. Harmon. In other words, to have an Army where sexual 
harassment and sexual assault is not tolerated, I think it has 
to be cultural and it has to be across the whole Army.
    So I don't think making it where you would stay at one post 
would solve that problem. And I will be the first to say it is 
not something we really looked at, but I don't think that would 
solve the problem that we address.
    Mr. Kelly. Yes, ma'am, Ms. Ricci?
    Ms. Ricci. Yeah, if I may----
    Mr. Kelly. Come up.
    Ms. Ricci. If I may, I also had soldiers tell me exactly 
the opposite problem happens at Fort Hood at times, where you 
have individuals who have been there for 10 years, and this 
pocket of indiscipline has developed because they all have 
allowed it within the same organization.
    So there is also that opposite problem that can take place. 
So certainly not rotating every year, but we also don't want to 
have the same individuals stay at the same location for that 
long and have this complacency develop.
    Mr. Kelly. Okay.
    And real quickly, because I am running out of time, but I 
do want to say this. When we start disclosing behavioral health 
issues and firing soldiers, when we advocate that when the 
person is found guilty of doing something and say that should 
have been cause to relieve, but on the same token say that we 
should be able to go to behavioral health and it not impact our 
career, you can't have both of those. You can have one or you 
can have the other.
    That is why due process and equal application of the law is 
so important. But we can't disclose medical information about 
one person and say, let's fire them from their job because now 
we know they did bad, and hold people accountable for not 
firing them, and then say, oh, but you can trust us, it will 
not have an adverse impact on your career.
    And I just hope that we don't take that out of that. I 
still think that our personal medical information and the need 
to be able to go get help for behavioral issues should never be 
outweighed by the fear of losing your job when someone 
discloses that, that it is a career- and life-ending episode.
    And so, with that----
    Ms. Ricci. I couldn't agree more.
    Mr. Kelly [continuing]. I have to yield back.
    Ms. Ricci, if you can----
    Ms. Ricci. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
    The difficulty is that there are MOSes and jobs where, if 
you do have a significant mental health issue, you cannot be 
kept in that position. So how that is handled has to be very 
delicate, and there is a balance that can be struck.
    So I couldn't agree with you more, Ranking Member Kelly.
    Ms. Speier. Mrs. Davis, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
    Again, I really appreciate all the hard work that went into 
this.
    You talked--and I am trying to remember who said this, but 
that, in a way, what they did, when it came to having those 
discussions about sexual harassment on bases, that it was 
divorced from other efforts. So how do we change that?
    Because, to be honest, I attended some trainings; I believe 
it was at Fort Myer here. And we visited Lackland Air Force 
Base and really tried to look in depth at some issues that were 
happening there. And, you know, I feel like we have seen this. 
We just keep repeating this movie. And how do we--I am not 
certain how we get to that. Because it is critically important.
    In looking at these issues that you wanted to, you know, 
really see some resolution, are there other services that you 
think were doing this so differently that it provides the best 
example of what we all should be doing?
    Because I think, to an outside observer, you know, people 
think of our troops, they think of people serving in the 
military; they obviously have a very great allegiance to one 
service or the other. But, on the other hand, they don't expect 
people to, at their core, come with different cultural issues 
that makes it so difficult to address these concerns, these 
issues, these tragedies.
    Where is the example?
    Mr. Swecker. I am not sure that--we subjected Fort Hood to 
such intense scrutiny. We really, really looked under the hood, 
no pun intended. But I am not sure that any other--you know, if 
we did this elsewhere, we just don't know what we would see.
    But what we did see here was the command emphasis. Soldiers 
will go where they are led. NCOs will go where they are led. 
And it really has to come from the top. And I think the former 
military officers here would agree with that. Everything comes 
from the top.
    We tend to blame the NCOs. It is not necessarily their 
fault that they are not doing--they are the first-line 
supervisors. It is not necessarily their fault that they are 
not doing what they need to be doing, because whatever is 
important to their commander will be important to them.
    Mrs. Davis. Uh-huh.
    Mr. White. Representative Davis, your questions are 
searching for systemic, large-scale solutions. And I respect 
that, because we did that too.
    One of the things that we did was we looked across the 
services--Army, Navy, Air Force--to find what each is doing 
well. And what we found is that each have components that they 
are doing well.
    For example, one thing that the Army does well is it has a 
schoolhouse where it sends people for SHARP training. That is a 
good thing. Now, the efficacy of that training, the jury is 
still out.
    One thing that another service does very well is they look 
at soldiers and what are the tendencies toward violence or 
disrespect of other people. Because that manifests in SHARP, 
but it manifests elsewhere as well.
    Another service, one thing that they do well is they look 
at the whole soldier from the beginning and through the life 
cycle; what training and development do they need at different 
life cycles?
    What I think is a good suggestion is: Look at it all 
together. Let DOD look at this and integrate all of these 
strengths from the other services so we can make the cultural 
change that the armed services need.
    Mrs. Davis. Uh-huh.
    Ms. Ricci. I just want to add real quickly that one thing 
that became clear--and it may not be intuitive from the 
report--is that, at the brigade level, the program can be made 
or broken. So, if there was one place to focus emphasis, it 
would be at that brigade-leadership level.
    Mrs. Davis. Uh-huh. Okay.
    Again, there are so many areas that we have looked at over 
the years, and, certainly, that one of the special advocate, 
victims' advocate, was a change that was made. And yet the 
assurances that people in that position were especially well-
trained haven't necessarily panned out in the way that we would 
like.
    Is it realistic to expect that the special victims' 
advocate can come and be developed with the training that is 
required? Can we do it right? I mean, what does right look 
like?
    Ms. Ricci. I sure hope so, because I place a lot of hope in 
the use of the special victims' advocate.
    And, right now, one of the problems we have is the 
awareness of soldiers. They don't understand the position. And 
there are soldiers who turn down the assistance of the SVC 
[Special Victims' Counsel] because they see them as part of the 
command. And in the same way a soldier is not afraid to turn to 
a Trial Defense Service attorney, they should not be afraid to 
turn to an SVC.
    Mrs. Davis. Uh-huh.
    Ms. Ricci. So that education piece has to take place. That 
has to be a very critical part of the whole SHARP program.
    And as far as training, every SVC has to be fully 
certified, and that certification has to mean something. I did 
not look at the training that they are receiving. I was told 
that every person who serves as an SVC does become certified.
    Mrs. Davis. Uh-huh. All right.
    Ms. Speier. The gentlewoman's time----
    Mr. Swecker. May I add just briefly, we don't think there 
were enough of them at Fort Hood. There is a very limited 
number of SVCs.
    Ms. Speier. How many are there?
    Ms. Ricci. Currently, there are four certified SVCs at Fort 
Hood. I have been told that there are others who also are 
certified but only do it part-time to help during, you know, 
surge periods. But I know there are only four and that it 
really is not enough for Fort Hood. It is not enough.
    Mr. Swecker. It could take as long as 2 weeks to get an SVC 
in front of--with their victim, in front of CID to get the 
original statement, the first statement out of them, sometimes 
longer because of the overassignment.
    Ms. Speier. And some of the SVCs only communicate with the 
victim by phone.
    Mr. Swecker. Right.
    Ms. Speier. So there is----
    Mr. Swecker. That is correct.
    Ms. Speier. Mrs. Davis had another question.
    Mrs. Davis. Just a quick question. Have we ever questioned 
whether or not that is the best label for this individual?
    Because what I found was a number of women, particularly, 
and even, I think, a gentleman or two didn't like being called 
a victim, even though they understood the position that they 
were in.
    And I would just throw that out there. Maybe somebody has 
some other thoughts about it.
    Mr. Kelly. Chairwoman, if I might, my wife is a victim 
assistance coordinator in a district attorney's office, and I 
100 percent agree. These guys need to be civilians. And when I 
say ``guys,'' I use that in the guys and girls, both sexes 
nature. They need to be civilians.
    And 4 is not adequate to do almost 40,000 troops at Fort 
Hood. But they need to be civilians, and they do not need to 
transfer, they do not need to move between units, and they do 
not need to be temporary in nature. They should be 
professional, qualified people who know this job well.
    And, with that, I am sorry, Chairwoman, but I yield back.
    Ms. Speier. All right.
    Ms. Garcia, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Garcia. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    And I wanted to continue my discussion about Spanish-
surname Latinos, people of color. I notice, on page 121 of your 
report, you do note that 44 percent believed the Army had not 
come far enough in the promotion of women and minorities, and 
54 percent of the respondents had concerns about how women and 
minorities were treated in the Army.
    And keeping in the question I asked about bilingual/
bicultural workings with the families, I think the same could 
be true about soldiers. And your report does say that you think 
that the survey results provide further support for the belief 
that equal opportunity for people of color and women merits 
further attention.
    Mr. Chairman, how do you see that? I mean, what should the 
Army do? What should Congress do? Or who should do it? I mean, 
how did we give this topic further attention?
    Mr. Swecker. So we had a very difficult time with this 
issue, because it was so broad and so deep. And we were so 
focused on the SHARP program itself that the EO-type issues and 
the issues of equal opportunities, we just didn't go--we could 
not go real deep.
    But there were enough indicators there from our surveys and 
our interviews and our group interviews to tell us that there 
could be issues that needed to be explored deeper. And that is 
why we included a separate section in the report about that.
    But, with that, I also want to open it up to everyone else.
    Ms. Garcia. Just very quickly, because I do have another--
--
    Mr. Swecker. Sure.
    Ms. Garcia [continuing]. Question, and I only have 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Harmon. I won't repeat anything that Mr. Swecker said, 
but I think the Army needs more training and more meaningful 
training in the area of racial sensitivity and including 
unconscious bias.
    And there is a lot I could say about this particular 
section, but I want to respect you, Representative Garcia, so I 
will----
    Ms. Garcia. Right. Well, thank you. Because we did talk to 
some young soldiers when we were there in the CODEL, and they 
are, you know, young people. It is generational. They think 
about a lot of these issues much differently than our 
generation does.
    But I want to go back also to some of the comments, Mr. 
Chairman, you made about those critical first 24 and 48 hours. 
The policy that is changed says that they must wait 48 hours 
before they reach out to FBI and local authorities. What is the 
reason for that?
    Mr. Swecker. Are you talking about the new protocol that 
is----
    Ms. Garcia. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Swecker [continuing]. Being promulgated? I didn't 
notice that part. But, generally, the missing--you know, the 
local law enforcement is the closest and probably the most----
    Ms. Garcia. Please know that I am a former judge. I mean--
--
    Mr. Swecker. Sure.
    Ms. Garcia [continuing]. I am asking the question very 
specifically. Because it seems to me that the Vanessa Guillen 
case, they just waited, like, for over a month.
    Mr. Swecker. I will give you the short answer. And I talked 
to the FBI office there that is out of San Antonio but they 
have a resident agency nearby. They don't have the resources to 
go after every missing-soldier case within 48 hours. They just 
don't have the people. That is why I referred it to local law 
enforcement and I said that is probably the quickest, fastest 
way to get things rolling with a missing soldier.
    But, also, I think the MPs [military police] have a 
significant role to play. They can ping that cell phone within 
hours if they want to. And they have to get quick authorization 
to do that, and you have to go to the phone company to do it, 
but that is the fastest way to locate somebody.
    Also, putting out a BOLO, a be-on-the-lookout. Neither of 
that is done now within the first 24 hours just as a matter of 
some sort of practice. I don't think it is built into policy, 
but that is the practice of the MPs at Fort Hood.
    And all that ought to be circumstantial. You know, if this 
is a soldier that chronically fails to report or there have 
been issues with this soldier----
    Ms. Garcia. Sure.
    Mr. Swecker [continuing]. That is one thing. But if it is 
someone who doesn't have a history of failing to report, the 
first hour or 2 hours you might want to ping the cell phone or 
put a BOLO out.
    Ms. Garcia. Right. Because you remember, in this case, it 
was 2 months before they acknowledged there was foul play.
    Mr. Swecker. It was a long time before they even entered 
her name into NCIC [National Crime Information Center], which 
is a pretty----
    Ms. Garcia. Right.
    Mr. Swecker [continuing]. Something that should have 
happened fairly quickly.
    Ms. Garcia. Right.
    And then that leads me to my final question. Was there 
anything that you all saw that warranted referral to either the 
local DA [district attorney], the U.S. attorney, the FBI, or 
anyone, in terms of any criminal conduct?
    Mr. Swecker. I think that that is being addressed in the 
15-6 that is looking very, very carefully at all of the 
circumstances surrounding Vanessa Guillen's case----
    Ms. Garcia. I am sorry. What is a 15-6?
    Mr. Swecker. It is an internal investigation, basically.
    Ms. Garcia. But I thought they finished the internal 
investigation.
    Mr. Swecker. I don't think they have announced their 
results. I think they are still----
    Ms. Garcia. So you are talking about the one the four-
stars----
    Mr. Swecker. The four-star----
    Ms. Garcia [continuing]. Are doing?
    Mr. Swecker. Yes.
    Ms. Garcia. Okay. So did you all get a copy of the 
investigation that Overland did of Vanessa's unit itself?
    Mr. Swecker. I have seen it. Yes, we got a look at it. I 
think it was broad enough in scope, but it also was taken 
over--it was overtaken by the four-star. So that was halted in 
its tracks.
    Ms. Garcia. Well, I have been after it, because it has been 
promised to--I have been promised to get a copy of that now 
for----
    Mr. Swecker. Yeah, I think that that has been subsumed----
    Ms. Garcia [continuing]. Months.
    Mr. Swecker [continuing]. That has been overtaken by the 
broader investigation that's being conducted by the four-star, 
to my knowledge.
    Ms. Garcia. All right. Well, thank you all so much.
    I yield back.
    Ms. Speier. All right.
    We are coming to the close of our hearing, but I do have a 
couple of final questions.
    You just referenced something about Vanessa Guillen's case, 
in which it wasn't put into the NCIC until 2 months in. Could 
you just kind of run through a list of things that you think 
were not done well in that investigation?
    Mr. Swecker. Well, I think it went into NCIC somewhere 
about 48 hours in, which we felt like was a little bit late.
    I hesitate--I think we all hesitate to go deep into the 
Guillen case and the things that went wrong, because the 
investigation, the four-star investigation, is looking at that 
very hard. And I am very reluctant and I think we are all very 
reluctant to step on that investigation, for very good reasons.
    But I do think that there is--they are looking at the right 
things, because we have been in liaison with the four-star on 
that and we have given them some material from our review.
    Ms. Speier. Okay. Just as long as it doesn't become a 
FORSCOM IG report that is counter to everything that you came 
to conclusions on.
    On page 114, you state, ``It was a culture that was 
developed over time out of neglect and persisted over a series 
of commands that predated 2018. A toxic culture was allowed to 
harden and set.''
    So, while the Army is taking steps to address those who are 
presently--were in command at Fort Hood, your comments suggest 
that this has gone on since 2014 or maybe before. So how do we 
address those leaders who then went on to other installations 
and bases and commands but were part of the problem?
    Mr. Harmon. Madam Chairwoman, I am not a--you know, I think 
as Mr. Swecker said, we have identified for the Army both all 
the problems that we could ascertain in our deep dive and some 
of the recommendations. I really think it is up to the Army to 
determine how far they want to go back with any type of other 
actions.
    It certainly was beyond the purview of what we did, to go 
back and to figure out every person in the chain of command. I 
think it would have hindered us from coming to the good report 
that we did.
    So I am not trying to dodge your question. I think it is 
really up to the Army to determine the answer to your question.
    Ms. Speier. Or maybe----
    Mr. Swecker. May I put some perspective around that----
    Ms. Speier. Sure.
    Mr. Swecker [continuing]. If I can?
    I mean, we had a hard time fixing accountability on one 
person, and we didn't feel like that was our role.
    What we did see, though, is that there has been a lot of 
conflicts, a lot of warfighting going on over the last 20 
years, and we think that the commands', the various commands', 
100 percent focus was on readiness, and in their peripheral 
vision they didn't see this, and it was an act of omission 
versus an act of commission.
    So you can almost understand how it happened. It shouldn't 
have happened. But, given the context over the last 10, 15 
years, we felt like they took their eye off the ball on 
something that was very important and never made the connection 
between readiness and recruitment and the health and safety of 
their soldiers because of what was directly in front of them.
    Ms. Speier. Well, Mr. Swecker, I appreciate your comments, 
but we have spent almost a billion dollars over the last 10 
years on this issue, and nothing changes.
    And your report underscores the fact that, you know, this 
culture continues, that climate surveys are not seriously 
reviewed and action taken on them; SVCs, although we have put 
money there, are inadequate, and people don't even know they 
exist. As much as they have these ostensible trainings, it 
appears that at Fort Hood they were checking boxes and it 
wasn't even going on.
    So, at some point, we have to say that we have to turn 
this--we have to do something differently. Because this is not 
working, and your report underscores it. And there are lives 
lost because of it.
    And, you know, now we have Airman Aposhian who was murdered 
in her dormitory just a few months ago. I mean, it is becoming 
frightful. And when you have family members who are asking the 
question, ``I don't know if it makes sense for my son or 
daughter to go into the military because I fear for their 
lives, not overseas, but here at home,'' we have a huge 
problem.
    So I know we should bring this to an end. I think what I 
will do is reserve my question on suicide, since you looked at 
50 of them, and have a conversation with you offline. Because 
it is another area that this committee is very concerned about 
and one that we have to get a better handle on.
    Any final comments you would like to make, Ranking Member?
    All right. On behalf of all the committee members, your 
work has been just so helpful and informative. And it helps us 
recognize that we could do a whole lot better if we just hire 
all of you for the next few years and have you go base to base 
so we can clean things up. But we will have to evaluate that.
    Thank you again for being here. Thank you for your service 
to our country and to our military.
    And, at this point, we stand adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 3:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

    
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                            A P P E N D I X

                            December 9, 2020

     
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              PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

                            December 9, 2020

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