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MOAA's 2004 Annual Meeting
The Chairman's MessageThis weekend brings to a close two years of serving as your chairman. It’s been a very rewarding and exhilarating experience, a very gratifying two years. We’re very proud of the Military Officers Association of America’s (MOAA’s) record of achievement. We’re very proud of the hard work that continues to make MOAA the most influential, most relevant, and most active professional military association in the United States. You know MOAA has been successful when a conference committee or a congressional staff calls our Government Relations team and asks them to assist in writing the legislation that they wish to propose. That’s why we get called for press comments in the media. That’s why the military coalition looks to MOAA for leadership. There is no question MOAA has made the transition from being identified as The Retired Officers Association to being accepted by the media, by Congress, by active duty, Guard, and Reserve units, and by the leadership in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as the premier military officers’ association and the most influential association for the military in Washington, D.C. In our strategic planning, some of the big-picture items that have occupied our attention, of course, must be reported at the Annual Meeting. Admiral Ryan will get into more of those details. It’s been gratifying now to go up on the Hill and introduce ourselves when we Storm the Hill and have members of Congress ask, “Didn’t you used to be called ...?”, and I say, yes, we were, but now we’re the Military Officers Association of America. The reason for that name change two years ago was to better position MOAA to sustain its membership. We recognized that our very faithful and loyal members from World War II and the Korean War were now leaving us, and we believed that with recruiting efforts we could identify active duty, Reserve, and National Guard servicemembers who would be more likely to participate and be more interested in our services if the association’s name reflected the reality of what we were doing and our concern for our active duty folks and their families. You gave that decision your overwhelming support, and I’m proud to report that with the name change our marketing efforts have fallen into place. Let me underscore that the association, though targeting those new active duty members, hasn’t lost its commitment to the retired members and surviving spouses. As you look at the legislative proposals MOAA has worked on this past year, you can see the attention to helping our retirees. We can’t say enough about our veterans. We are very proud that concurrent receipt has been changed; we haven’t achieved 100 percent of our goal, but we’ve made progress on the concurrent receipt side for the veterans. And we’re very proud of the progress we’ve made reforming the Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP). We’re so happy that we now can look to the more than 250,000 widows who participate in this program and tell them that over 31/2 years their annuity will increase to a full 55 percent of the retired pay of their sponsors. The progress we’ve made on these issues reflects MOAA’s continuing commitment to retirees and their families. Naturally, there also is much on the plate for our Guard and Reserve. We’re so happy that we were able to successfully lobby for Guard and Reserve personnel, for health care programs, for tax relief, for tax exemption for drill periods, etcetera. That’s a good track record, but what does the future hold for the association? Again, we’ll see dynamic leadership in our chapters, dynamic involvement for key issues that are important in your states. A No. 1 issue ought to be that we exempt retired pay from state taxation so that retired military servicemembers can live in every state with their retired pay. That’s a challenge for you down at the local level. Another challenge for members at the local level is to support the troops as they’re called to deployment, support their families, and support the troops as they come back. We’re in a very dangerous war on terrorism. We are committing our young troops. We are committing their families. There’s great stress involved in that. Our personal responsibility will be to help the families and to support the troops, as we have in the past, and I know I can count on all of you to do that. There are many examples of MOAA’s involvement in the local communities. The Scholarship Fund of MOAA continues to be available. The cost of a college education continues to rise, a trend that is overwhelming for some of these families. Think about a young enlisted family trying to send their children to college. Please continue to support that. I’m proud to say The Scholarship Fund of MOAA has grown to offer more than 1,300 scholarships, that’s $5 million in interest-free loans and grants last year, up to $4,000 for each student. So you can see that’s a significant contribution. In my six years, that program has grown to $28 million. That’s a healthy chunk of change, and it is very important and a great service that MOAA provides. Don’t lose sight of that in the future. Keep contributing. Of course, many of the folks who get the job done are members of our 424 chapters. I think one of the most gratifying experiences [as chairman of MOAA’s board of directors] is my travel and the opportunity to interact with chapter members, to see the passion and the commitment that you bring to MOAA. We’re very proud of that relationship. We’re very proud of your autonomy, and we wish you success in arranging succession programs for your leadership. When members of the board of directors go to Storm the Hill each year, we invite the chapter presidents to come with us. Someone mentioned that perhaps Congress is suffering burnout from what they’ve done for MOAA and our servicemembers and families, including an increase in pay, TRICARE For Life, the TRICARE Senior Pharmacy program — those big, bumper-sticker items. But Storming the Hill is very important. The chapter presidents who have come forward know that pounding the pavement, wearing out the shoe leather, is the key to our success. At the local level, your interaction with your local representatives also influences congressional decisions and makes sure those folks are aware of their responsibility to our military families. We know that in the fight for SBP reform this past year, certain members of the Senate suggested that they had given us the tax relief for the veterans, and they had given us TRICARE, so why were we back again? And I can tell you that you’re going to run into that again next year. In that regard, we’re going to hear from MOAA’s Government Relations Department, but I have to tell you, the association has eight registered lobbyists, and they’re the best. You know MOAA has been successful when a conference committee or a congressional staff calls our government relations team and asks them to assist in writing the legislation that they wish to propose. That’s why we get called for press comments in the media. That’s why The Military Coalition looks to MOAA for leadership. We’ve amended our bylaws — after careful study and consideration, the majority of members voted this year to allow active duty members to participate on the board. I think that’s going to be a sea change for us. It certainly gives us a focus in the future. I’ve always considered it appropriate, as I sit there with 36 members on the board, that a few of them ought to be active duty, Guard, or Reserve so that we hear directly from them in some numbers. We’ve gone through all the legal processes on this, and it’s approved by the Office of Secretary of Defense. They are private citizens operating on our board, and they can Storm the Hill with us. They’re not going to wear their uniform and a nametag. We want these people to be able to speak as citizens and not as military members of the armed services. But when they’re on the board, they can give us advice that reflects all the forces of the active duty and our Guard and Reserve units and their families, whom we have a great interest in supporting. So I think that’s a wonderful addition and change to the bylaws. We’ve appointed an advisory committee of active duty, Guard, and Reserve members to help us make the transition. The MOAA membership is dynamic. We have more than 23,000 new members so far this year. Our goal is about 24,000, and it’s going to be close. We’ve also lost a number of our World War II veterans, and we’re very saddened by that. But new ideas and new leadership are important to our future. Our first opportunity to introduce new, younger leadership will come in about two years. These active duty members who are serving on MOAA’s advisory committee will make that transition effectively. We also have an Auxiliary Advisory Committee. MOAA has more than 75,000 auxiliary members, and this committee gives them an opportunity to report to us, to have a voice in our board of directors, and to make known to us issues particular to our auxiliary members. It’s been a very important opportunity for us to hear from them. And as MOAA makes a transition over the next two years, it will be very valuable for these advisory committees to make the transition with us and provide their input. It’s an opportunity for these gentlemen and ladies to contribute to MOAA’s future. In closing, I’ve tried to show you the positive aspects of the leadership of this organization. We have a great membership. There’s a commitment, just like there was when you served on active duty. In my mind, it’s always gratifying to be on a winning team, and believe you me, we are on a winning team. We’ve got a great record of achievement. We’ve got those bumper-sticker items. We’re No. 1. I thank you for the two years of being your chairman. I will now call on Vice Adm. Norbert R. Ryan Jr., USN-Ret., MOAA’s president, for his report. —Adm. Jerry Johnson, USN-Ret. The President's ReportThe chairman gave you a very big-picture, thorough understanding of how we see things going here at your association, MOAA, and he said that I would give the detailed description. In the Army vernacular, that means I’m going to give you the perspective from the ground level. Admiral Johnson did a thorough job of telling you much of what I want to tell you, and that is that MOAA’s strategic plan, that we’ve all collectively put together, is working. And in Navy vernacular, I would simply say that our plan has us on course and on schedule to remain a tremendously vibrant and relevant association for another 75 years, and that’s something we all can be grateful for. You are the ones that motivate all of us, through your dedication and your desire to stay involved. … you give us that powerful voice. We have some challenges ahead, but thank God for challenges. We’ve overcome obstacles the past 75 years, and we have the plan and the team to ensure MOAA will have that same “one powerful voice.” I could go into detail on this strategic plan and tell you about the wonderful things that we’re doing in every one of our departments. But I think I can sum it up by telling you the same thing I told our board of directors two days ago at our meeting: It’s easy to acknowledge change, but it’s difficult to act on it. The chairman was talking about bumper stickers. I think there’s a bumper sticker that sums up this challenge very well. It says “Change is good; you go first.” Well, thank God, TROA went first. We have a new name, MOAA, that has opened up wonderful opportunities to us, opportunities that the chairman talked to you about, that are going to keep us relevant. Twenty-four thousand new members this year is our goal. We anticipate we’re going to make it. Coupled with our chapter system, our membership is going to continue to give us the clout we need to have banner years like we’ve had this year and in the past. And so our plan is working. What I thought would be more interesting to you than all the good wonderful initiatives that are under way and changing, that are going to be working for us and allowing us to serve you better, would be to share with you from the ground level seven communications we’ve had from association members in the past year that I think address a more important question, and that is MOAA’s mission: Are we making a difference in the lives of our members? Are we contributing to the defense of this country? The first communication involves one of the things the chairman mentioned, The Scholarship Fund of MOAA. Thousands of members contributed. Our chapters and councils come through with gangbuster results for us. Maj. Gen. Bob Butcher, USMC-Ret., is going to recognize all of you, but I thought I would put a face on what your efforts have helped us to do in the scholarship program, not from a numbers perspective, but from the view of a mother who received a letter from us telling her that two of her children were going to get a scholarship this year, thanks to all of you. I think her letter says a lot about the power of our association and working together: “Dear MOAA: On the day we received notification of your scholarship awards for my children, Matthew and Kristin, it was the first time I can remember since my husband’s passing 71/2 years ago that I actually felt happy and proud. “It was as if a miracle had taken place. I cannot believe that you awarded each of them $4,000. I nearly fainted. You see, this year has been particularly difficult for us. I lost my job working for the university that my children were attending, and one of the benefits, of course, of being an employee was 50 percent off the children’s tuition. “The one thing I had promised my husband before he passed away from his illness was that I would make sure that our children got a bachelor’s degree. Times have been difficult with my illness, loss of job, and the loss of the university discount. “I was truly worried and concerned as to how I was going to pay for tuition this year. Then your miracle was delivered in the mail. There are no words in the English language to express my elation, thankfulness, appreciation, and happiness for the help you have provided Matthew and Kristin for their education. I can only explain it as a miracle.” Ladies and gentlemen, you helped make that miracle happen, and as the chairman said, you’re helping 1,300 young men and women go to school. You’re telling their parents how much we value their service, and you’re telling these young men and women that we have confidence that they are our future. You made that happen. We help a lot of other people in a lot of other departments, and I couldn’t emotionally get through some of the letters that we get when our Benefits Information Department, under Capt. Bud Schneeweis, USCG-Ret., has helped widows, young men and women, veterans, enlisted people, people who walk in off the street asking us for help because no one else is there to help them, and we help them. But I chose one story about The Officer Placement Service, TOPS, which is MOAA’s job transition program to help military retirees who are transitioning, whether they’re officer or enlisted. Col. Buzz Buse, USMC-Ret., the [former] staff director of that department, goes out with his team and they give 190 free presentations a year to every base and installation in the country, helping thousands of enlisted and officer personnel with their résumés and with getting jobs. A colonel in the Marine Corps from Washington, D.C., was retiring this year. And he was having trouble because he wanted to go work in San Antonio, and he wasn’t having any luck — even with all the help MOAA had given him up to that point — and he called Buzz and his team, and they reminded him that in addition to all the help we had given him, we have a network of volunteers like you who help folks who are transitioning into their second career by giving them people to network with in the business world. And so this colonel quickly got on the network, quickly got a hold of one of our members who volunteered to give his time in San Antonio. That member gave this colonel several business contacts to help him get started, and no sooner had the colonel had a meeting with one of those business contacts than he was hired, and boy, was he grateful. He called us to say, “Thank you, you’ve got a life member forever because of what you’ve done.” The Member Service Center, which Lt. Gen. Michael Nelson, USAF-Ret. (my predecessor), started with Nan O’Leary, offers a toll-free number that members can call — lots of folks call in who aren’t members, and we try and help them, too — but we help thousands of members every month with information they need, or we help them with their problems. Usually we’re helping individuals, but I wanted to tell you very briefly about a situation where, because of you all calling in and our powerful voice, we were able to make a difference for the entire military population. As you know, DoD changed contractors for the pharmacy benefit this past year and was hoping to have a seamless transition so that no one would notice any difference as we went to get our pharmacy prescriptions. Many of you know it didn’t quite work out that way. And luckily, some of you called MOAA, members who called and said, “I’m trying to get a prescription for my wife who has cancer, and I’m driving 60 miles round-trip, and they’re not giving me my prescription because they say I need to renew my ‘medical necessity’ form. My wife needs the medicine now. Can you help?” Nan O’Leary and her team put all these calls together, and we realized that not only had DoD changed contractors, but because they had changed contractors, someone said, let’s make everybody renew their medical necessity form if they need to get a prescription that’s not a generic medicine. Nan and her team put this together in less than 24 hours. They met with Col. Steve Strobridge, USAF-Ret., director of MOAA’s Government Relations Department, and briefed me. We called the lead flag officer in charge of this at DoD, and he said, “No, that can’t be right.” I said, “Admiral, please check with your people.” That same day, he called back and said, “I’m chagrined to say that I just found out we denied 10,000 people prescriptions today; I didn’t know.” All of you, by calling the Member Service Center, and MOAA, by using our powerful name, helped thousands of people get prescriptions they desperately needed. So thank you for helping us to make a difference, and keep using that Member Service Center. It’s going to keep paying dividends for us. I want to tell you about four calls I’ve taken in the Member Service Center in the last year and a half or so. Folks call into the Member Service Center, and every week Nan and her team ask if they have time to talk to the president, because I like to know what’s on your mind, and if we’re working on the right things. This first call — many of you have heard me talk about it, I will never forget it as long as I live — was from a lady in Florida who had called in to change the address on her magazine subscription. They patched her call up to me, and I knew that her husband had just recently passed away. I asked how she was doing, and we worked our way through that, and I offered my condolences, and she told me that she was changing her address because she was moving out of her home into an apartment, because she and her daughter had looked at what her finances were and didn’t think she could afford the house. She said, “Admiral, you know, I’m so proud of my husband, John. He was a life member, which has helped me stay connected with MOAA. I still get the magazine. I can still go to the chapter meetings. But I’m glad John is not here to see what has happened to my lifestyle. He thought, and I thought, I was going to get 55 percent of his retired pay when he passed away. You and I know I’m only getting 35 percent. That’s why I have to move to an apartment.” Ladies and gentlemen, thanks to your help and MOAA’s powerful voice, no other widows will have to make those calls in the future, because we finally eliminated that doggone widows tax. Thank you for making that happen. You realize we have an outstanding government relations team, but as our quarterback, Colonel Strobridge, pointed out, you all sent in 600,000 e-mails, postcards, letters, and phone calls to help “deliver the mail” and get this done. So thank you for eliminating the widows tax. The chairman mentioned our progress the past two years in the disability payments area. I want to share a call I got in February from a retiree in Texas. He was 100-percent disabled due to the devastation Agent Orange had wreaked on his body. He called me in February because that was the first day he got a paycheck for his disability that he didn’t pay for himself by giving up his retirement pay. He was calling for two reasons. First, MOAA staff in the Benefits Information Department and the Government Relations Department had helped him sort through the paperwork and get his claim in when he didn’t think he could do it himself. And second, he was calling because our collective efforts had finally gotten him and 150,000 other medically retired disabled individuals a paycheck they didn’t have to pay for. This was a bill worth $22 billion over 10 years that we got through last year, thanks to your help. Colonel Strobridge is going to tell you later why this gentleman is going to be even happier this year. You all helped us bring attention to Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) amendment to the defense authorization bill by sending in thousands of e-mails while the [committee] conference was going on to get the attention of the full Congress on the need to make more progress on this disability issue. So you all are going to make all those 100-percent disabled veterans even happier this year than they were last year when this young retired disabled veteran called me. You could just hear the emotion in his voice as he called in to say thank you. And I’m just relaying that thank you to all of you. I want to talk about one other goal that we had last year, and that was, as the chairman said, to talk about helping our Guard and Reserve members and their families. I got a call three weeks ago from a Navy Reserve doctor who was really frustrated. He had just come back six months earlier from Iraq, where he had been serving with the Marine Corps. He was a doctor who specialized as a civilian in emergency medicine and trauma care, and he told me how proud he was of his service, how he felt, without bragging, that he had saved the lives of several Marines he was serving with because of his expertise. But why was he frustrated? He explained to me this situation that the Guard and Reserve are in. While he was overseas — earning far less money, of course, than he did as a specialist in emergency medicine and trauma care — his family was covered by TRICARE because he was on active duty. And they were able to stay on TRICARE for six months after he came home, which was crucial to him both because of his loss of pay and also because two of his four children unfortunately have cystic fibrosis. Now, he went over to Iraq, and his wife was able to take care of those children because we gave them world-class medical treatment, even though his salary was much lower. But six months after he got home that insurance ran out, and that’s why he was calling me. The Department of Defense doesn’t think we need to improve our health care for our Guard and Reserve. We do. He asked me, “Are we going to ever get this through? Let me tell you what it’s meant to me. Now, I’m paying for civilian medical coverage again. As a doctor, I can afford it if I work full time. I also want to continue to serve with the Marine Corps, but I realize that in one day as a civilian doctor, I can make more than I do in a month in my drilling time with my Marines. I owe them, but I also owe my family. Admiral, I’m afraid I’m going to have to get out of the reserves to pay my bills.” And he said, “By the way, do you know that those same Marines that I had healthy going over to Iraq, I’m now seeing them come back in with high blood pressure, and when I ask these young enlisted Marines why they’re not taking their medication, they say, ‘Well, because I’m back in college and I can’t afford the prescriptions; I’ve lost my health care, too.’ ” Ladies and gentlemen, because of you all, the good news is the Senate and the House passed a bill that the president is going to sign that we think is going to make all those Marines and this young doctor who were over there in Iraq eligible for several years of TRICARE, and we hope they’re going to be able to continue to serve their country. You all helped make that happen by Storming the Hill, by coming in with phone calls. You’re making a big difference to folks like this doctor and these young Marines. So thank you. My seventh example is a phone call I got just a couple weeks ago. This was a member from California. He was 88 years old and he was mad at me; he was mad at the association. But he was respectful, and he said, “Admiral, I’m really disappointed in you guys. I’m sitting out here in California with a sick wife. I’ve been paying into the Survivor Benefit Plan for years, and I could really use that money. Are you ever going to get paid-up SBP?” And I explained to him that we had all decided that our No. 1 priority this year was helping a quarter of a million widows, and we were confident we were going to do it, and after we got that off our plate, we were going to take on some of these other issues that are equally important, like paid-up SBP and the other issues that Admiral Johnson mentioned. We talked about it for 15 minutes, and he said, “Admiral, you’ve done the right thing. TROA and now MOAA have always done the right thing. I trust you. I know that you’ll get to me when you can.” Ladies and gentlemen, that call made my day, and it reminded me, as I think it reminds all of us, what we’re really here for, and that is to serve men and women like you. That’s why it’s not just our mission, but our privilege and our passion to serve selfless leaders like that 88-year-old and all of you here and the folks you represent. I close by saying I am confident that despite the loss of our board class of 2004 and those who have moved on, MOAA’s strategic plan is good. We have a great board of directors. We have new advisory committees. We have a great staff. Most important, we have a great council and chapter system and wonderful members like that 88-year-old who called me. We’re going to continue to have a championship team that is going to be able to deliver victories to our country and to our military families. I thank you, because you are the ones that make it happen; you are the ones that motivate all of us, through your dedication and your desire to stay involved, to go to those chapter meetings, to write those postcards. You give us that powerful voice, and you will continue to give us that powerful voice. More than that, you give us inspiration by your examples of dedicated service. So thank you for your leadership, and thank you for your example. —Vice Adm. Norbert R. Ryan Jr., USN-Ret. The Chief Financial Officer's ReportMOAA’s financial statements for the year 2003 were prepared by our audit firm, Johnson Lambert & Co. A summary of the finances was published in the October issue of Military Officer. MOAA’s finances continue to be in excellent shape, and our auditors confirmed that with their 2003 audited financial statements. They gave us a clean bill of health, an unqualified opinion, which in auditor-speak means an excellent report. The result is in large measure due to careful stewardship by two committees on the board of directors: the Finance Committee, chaired by Brig. Gen. John Finan, USAF-Ret., and the Investment Committee, chaired by Col. James Anderson, USAF-Ret. Let me give you some of the highlights from the 2003 financial report. Expenses were almost $20 million. Revenues exceeded expenses by more than $16 million. Net assets are now $73 million. The Scholarship Fund of MOAA had a banner year in 2003. The fund received $3.1 million in donations and bequests and loan repayments of $2.3 million, which allowed us to award more than $5 million through the scholarship fund to help more than 1,300 students. This year is looking to be another good year financially. To date, revenues are exceeding expenses by almost $2 million. Let’s hope the stock market doesn’t tank. One of the best parts of my job is that I get to manage the scholarship fund. I want to thank everyone who contributed to the 75th anniversary campaign. In the past, we principally relied on bequests. Usually we consider it a good year if 2,000 members donate to the scholarship fund. During the past 12 months, we have had more than 8,000 donors and collected $3 million. Thank you. Later in the meeting, Maj. Gen. Bob Butcher, USMC-Ret., will announce the chapter category winners, chapters who have contributed the most money or have the largest number of contributors. We recognize that many chapters have their own scholarship fund, and we applaud your efforts. The idea is to help children of military families, and over the past 55 years, we have been able to help more than 8,000 students. I just want to thank you for being extremely generous. Now, back to the script. In summary, your board of directors, and particularly the Finance and Investment committees, have ensured, financially speaking, that MOAA is well-financed. —Col. Glenn Zauber, USAF-Ret. Guest Speaker: Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, USAWhat I’d like to talk about right up front is the Military Officers Association of America, MOAA. Since 1929 you guys got it right. You were joint before anybody even knew what joint was all about. You went ahead and set up an organization that allowed people from all services to join — an organization that served all soldiers, airmen, Marines, sailors, and Coast Guardsmen. That was pretty visionary when you think about it, because nobody was talking about joint operations in 1929. In fact, nobody was even seriously talking about joint operations until the last decade. MOAA is the foundation of doing what is right, and it has been for 75 years for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and coast guardsmen. So you’re almost 80 years ahead of the Pentagon, which is not that tough to do. I can tell by the way some of you are chuckling, you’re not surprised by that. So for about 75 years now, MOAA has been serving our young men and women in uniform, and I really salute you for that. I applaud you for that, and I would only offer that we need to make sure that we don’t turn this into the last man or the last lady’s club. We need to make sure that we reach out to the new group of veterans and the new group of servicemembers who are out there in this all-volunteer force, this most magnificent array of young men and women, young Americans, willing to put their lives, their education, their families, their jobs, their careers, their fortunes on the line to defend America. I think they’re worthy of us reaching out and trying to include them in an organization like this so that this organization can continue to be vibrant and grow and be as responsive to servicemembers’ needs as it has been for the past 75 years. I looked at MOAA’s Web site yesterday and counted 29 different issues that were passed by the House and Senate in the National Defense Authorization Act that you supported, and every single one of them is very essential so that we can do our job today. I’ve served in the National Guard now for almost 40 years, and I can’t tell you of any time that I’ve ever served that I’ve ever been more proud to be a member of the National Guard. I’ve always been proud of my service and proud of the soldiers, Marines, sailors, airmen, and Coast Guardsmen that I’ve served alongside of over those years. On the 13th of December of this year, the National Guard will mark its 368th birthday. The National Guard is older than I am, older than anybody else in this room, and any two or three of us collectively. It’s the oldest continuously serving military organization in this nation because it predates the nation. It was the citizen militia that mustered in the early 1600s when we came over from Europe and colonized what is now the United States of America. The people in New England think they have been here the longest. The people in Florida think they’ve been here the longest. The people in California remind them that they were here before those two were here, but the bottom line is we’ve been here a long time, and we’ve been in this citizen-soldier militia business since before we were a nation, and we’re still doing it today, and it’s more important today than ever. I have just come back from visiting our young men and women in Iraq who are performing duties for this nation across the globe, and I’ve got to tell you — and I told … some of the members of the American Legion a few weeks ago — that I’m awestruck by the positive things I see, and I’m deeply humbled by what these young men and women are doing today. This is Ph.D.-level work that they’re doing. This is tough, tough soldiering that’s going on over there. And when I say soldiering, I mean the same thing for the sailors and Marines who are fighting in Fallujah this morning right alongside of three combat brigades of the Army National Guard. This is pretty remarkable. These are the finest, most selfless human beings I have ever known in the 40 years I’ve worn a uniform. They’re always ready, they’re always there, whenever, wherever they’re needed. They always answer the call to the colors. So far, we’ve called up 257,000 citizen soldiers and airmen out of the Army and Air National Guard, volunteers in an all-volunteer force that’s now 311/2 years old. They are being tested by the crucible of war, and every single one of them showed up — every single one of them. Their value in combat and their indomitable spirit is nothing less than daunting. Their love and dedication to their fellow soldiers and airmen, their families, and their love of state and nation is unequaled by anything I’ve seen in my experience. It has been said that those who carried America through World War II were “America’s greatest generation.” I genuinely salute that generation, and I thank them for their service — not only for their willingness to shed their blood in the service of their nation, but because that same precious blood surges through the veins of their sons, their daughters, their grandsons and their granddaughters, and yes, some of their great-grandchildren, who are serving today. They may have been the greatest generation, but what we’re seeing today may even be greater yet. And that would make the greatest generation very, very proud that their seeds that they brought forth have matured into the same kind of quality young men and women who will stand up and defend this nation when it needs to be defended. We remain a National Guard serving a nation at war. This morning there are more than 119,000 citizen soldiers and airmen deployed in 44 countries around the world answering the call to the colors, doing whatever is needed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Bosnia, Guantanamo Bay, the Horn of Africa, the Philippines, you name it — some places that we probably couldn’t even find on a map without looking in an atlas. The sacrifices made by our citizen soldiers and airmen are pretty extraordinary, but none is greater than dying to preserve and protect our way of life for the generations of Americans yet unborn. As of this morning, 135 citizen-soldiers have made that sacrifice. More than 1,000 have been significantly wounded to the point that they will carry their wounds for the rest of their lives, and it will alter their lives for the rest of the time that they’re here on Earth. We honor the memories of our fallen comrades. They will be missed. They will never be forgotten, but we must also remember the guardmembers who have been wounded. To their friends, to their families, we offer our thoughts and prayers, our admiration and support, and our undying gratitude. I ask your help in assisting us to get these soldiers and airmen the medical help and the follow-up treatment they deserve and the seamless access from the military to the VA that they should receive from a nation that values their service. And we have to do one more thing for them. We have to help them in returning to a productive and meaningful private life once that process is finished. As painful and terrible as war can be, our nation should never go to war in any place, at any time, for any reason, or for any length of time without the National Guard. I want to make that very, very clear. I honestly believe that in every single fiber of my being, that this nation should never go to war without the Guard. I told the American Legion this, and I’ll share it with you. When you call out the National Guard, you call out America; and when you call out America, we don’t lose. This new and different kind of war we’re in is going to take calling out all of our America. We’re all in this fight — the families, the employers, those wearing uniform. You don’t have to wear a uniform to serve in this particular engagement. All of us are in this, and this war is about us. For the first time in my lifetime, it’s about us. It’s about our way of life. It’s about our liberties. It’s about our freedoms. It’s about whether our children are going to live in the kind of America that we have come to love and value. The National Guard has evolved both as the constitutional militia and as an American institution. The National Guard’s mission has shifted: from a strategic reserve that was once only going to be called up for World War III — a Cold War deterrent — we now must be an operational force capable of joint and expeditionary employment on very short notice overseas. We must literally revert to our minuteman heritage, so that we can respond in minutes and — at the longest — hours when we’re talking about being attacked here at home. Through commitment, hard work, and sheer determination, your National Guard has produced an incredible achievement. It has made a huge contribution to our national security capabilities: both defending the homeland where you live and taking the fight to the enemy abroad, in what I consider to be homeland defense in-depth — like what is going on in the town of Fallujah this morning. Transforming the National Guard into a truly joint organization, we’ve realigned the entire National Guard. We’ve set up the National Guard Bureau in Washington, D.C., on a joint staff model. We interact on a daily basis with Northern Command, Pacific Command, Strategic Command, Joint Forces Command, and Special Operations Command. It is absolutely essential for homeland defense and our support of homeland security operations for us to work with other government agencies at the federal and state level to develop a common operating picture and a shared awareness. We do this so that we can have the best of the Department of Homeland Security and the best of the Department of Defense, because I think the American people deserve and expect no less. This allows us to identify potential threats and to coordinate a synchronized response so that we can detect, deter, and defeat an attack on this nation. Every state now has a joint force headquarters. Maj. Gen. Gus L. Hargett Jr., ARNG, is sitting right down here, the adjutant general of Tennessee. He presides over one of the most ready, capable organizations in the country, the Tennessee National Guard. He has a joint force headquarters in his state, and so do all of his 53 counterparts around the country. He has forces overseas deployed right now in Afghanistan and Iraq. He’s getting ready to send the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment to Iraq later this year. At the same time he’s got to be prepared to respond to his governor in the event of an act of nature, or in response to the use of weapons of mass destruction, counterterrorism, and on and on as a domestic or state mission. We can do both. We should do both. We must be organized, trained, and equipped to operate both at home and abroad, because the skill sets you need on the streets of Baghdad are the same skill sets you’re going to need on the streets of Nashville if you should be called out here. They can’t be organized to just do the home mission, and you can’t use them just to supplement the Army or the Air Force in the away mission. They have to be able to do both. And it’s my commitment to make sure that your National Guard is trained, equipped, organized, and ready to do those things on a moment’s notice here at home or on short notice for overseas. We’ve increased the number of weapons of mass destruction civil support teams. There are now 32 of these teams in the country. By the end of next year, there will be 44, and in less than two years, there will be one in every state and territory, and in California they’re going to have two. These weapons of mass destruction civil support teams can identify what chemical agents have been used. They can advise what to do about it, and they provide a communications bridge to your emergency responder, your police officer, your firefighter, your ambulance driver, who shows up on the scene. They can come in there and supplement them, tell them what they’ve been hit with, what they need to do about it, and then start establishing the communications so that the Department of Defense can, in fact, respond with what has come to be recognized as the first military responders for homeland defense: your National Guard citizen soldiers and airmen. But we’re working very closely with all of the other reserve components, the Marine Corps Reserve, the Army Reserve, the Air Force Reserve, the Navy Reserve, and the Coast Guard Reserve, to make sure that we bring them in in a synchronized manner, working collaboratively on a joint team so that they too can be part of the first military responder family. I think you as taxpayers and citizens would expect us to do that, and you wouldn’t want our union cards or our turf battles to get in the way of responding to the American people. I think we’ve grown beyond that, and I’m glad to tell you that the other reserve chiefs are on board with this. In addition, we’ve developed 12 CERF-Ps, that is, chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high-yield conventional explosives enhanced response force packages. We’ve taken existing Air and Army Guard existing units and given them extra training and equipment. The Marines and the Army have certified that they can do their missions to standard. These regional assets not only add to national weapons of mass destruction incident preparedness, but of equal importance, they are deployable. You can actually send these anywhere you need to — overseas if necessary — and they’re fully available to the combatant commanders. In addition, every state has developed a rapid reaction force and a quick reaction force so that they can generate about 100 people in less than four hours and about 500 people in less than 24 hours. These forces can do general purpose security missions, like guarding nuclear power plants or denying access to contaminated areas or containing a population that may be infected and needs to be quarantined. Or just coming on the street to prevent looting or civil unrest. They will be available to react to an incident as part of a state response. They’ll be there well before federal assets could be called upon or arrive on the scene to provide assistance, which I think makes sense. They become the military first responders at that level and — if the incident escalates — will aid in the transition to a higher level. The three years since Sept. 11 have clearly shown that the National Guard operates across the complete spectrum of national security missions. We simply cannot and should not go to war without the Guard. I talked to you about that earlier, and I absolutely am adamant about that. Whether we’re doing airport security or border security or guarding critical infrastructure like a nuclear power plant or a critical single point of failure for communications or oil pipelines or natural gas pipelines or chemical storage areas, whatever it might be, we need to be able to do that while simultaneously remaining available to respond to the calls of the governors for other missions — hurricanes, tornadoes, fires or flooding, snowstorms, and other things. At the same time all this is going on, the National Guard has about 25 percent of its force overseas, more than 100,000. We have about another 25 percent of the force getting ready to replace those people overseas. But that means we always have at least half of our capabilities here at home, capable to respond to you and your families and your friends and neighbors if your governor needs them to be called out here at home. It’s a balanced approach we’re taking. We can do both. And we think we can do it indefinitely, even in a volunteer system, even at the rate we’re being used right now, if we can assure a couple of things like predictability to the soldiers — when they’ll be called, and when they’ll come home. It’s not so much the soldiers need to know it; the families need to know it; and more importantly, their employers need to know it because they’re full partners in this as well. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has tasked us to adapt to better support not only the global war on terrorism but homeland defense and homeland security. The governors want us to ensure that they have sufficient forces with the right capabilities, with the right kinds of units, in the right places at the right time to be able to take care of whatever comes our way. The record overwhelmingly shows our success, but these successes don’t come without sacrifice. We continue the process of rebalancing our forces, and there is some pain involved. Taking a long-standing, very proud unit and taking it from a mission set it needed to do 30 years ago — and maybe even as recently as three years ago — and changing it to what we need for today and tomorrow can be painful, as you all know. All of you have been through military reorganizations. They are never fun. Everyone wants to keep doing what they were good at. But what we were good at and what we were needed for in the past is not what we’re needed for in the future. So we’ve got to make those changes or we’re going to have a very obsolete reenactment group that we will call the National Guard. We don’t want that. We want the National Guard to be no kidding, to show up with the right capabilities and the right skill sets needed to defend the country. So guys like General Hargett and I are working very hard to rebalance our force and get it so we have the right kind of units in the right place to be able to do the right things at the right time. Recruiting is a challenge in an all-volunteer force, and we came up about 7,000 short this year. We’re supposed to have 350,000 soldiers in the Army Guard, and we only ended up with 343,000, about 2 percent off of our recruiting goal. It’s not the end of the world. And I’ll tell you why. The force that we have now is the best quality force we’ve ever had, and we do not have any people on the books that are not really there or that we cannot really count on anymore. At one time, we had people like that. And by eliminating those people, we now know exactly what we have, and with that 343,000, we have a very healthy, deployable, ready, reliable, accessible, and essential force. But I need to get it up to 350,000, so we’re going to put 1,400 more recruiters on the street. That’s the first time we’ve increased recruiters in the National Guard in the past 16 years. It’s time to do it, and we’re doing it. We will add 1,400 recruiters to the 2,700 that are already in the field. We’ll close that gap, and we’ll close it this year. We are not lowering our standards and will not do so. Enlistment standards will remain the same for the Army Guard as they are in the Army and the same for the Air Guard as they are in the Air Force, and I am absolutely confident we’ll close that gap in the next year. Our families are critically important. Our family program is robust and improving daily. We want to partner and strengthen our relationship with MOAA in two very important areas and one new area that we haven’t talked about. First, I want to have your organization work with us to strengthen our family program. Second, I want to work with MOAA and other veterans’ service organizations to reach out to employers and strengthen the connection between them and their employees serving in the reserve components. And then there is a third area where I would like to build on our relationship. We have a growing number of combat-wounded veterans who we need to reach out to and ensure that they know that they have somebody who can help them through the maze of bureaucracy as they get passed from their service to the VA, and then through the wickets of the VA, which is a mine field to navigate unless you really understand the system. You can fall through the cracks in there fairly easily. So I would like the service organizations like MOAA and the National Guard Bureau and the service chiefs to work together to make sure that we care about these servicemembers just as much after they are wounded as we did before they were wounded. I’m concerned about effective employer support, benefits, and protections, so that our civilian employers continue to allow people to do their duty in the National Guard — so that they realize they are full partners in this. Regarding financial hardships for the self-employed, I don’t want to see the Guard and Reserve turn into an organization that doesn’t have any self-employed members. We have to find a way to relieve the burden of the self-employed, and we have to find a way to take care of the people that work in a growing sector in the American economy, small businesses. When you take two or five people out of a small business, it has great impact on the business. We need to be able to overcome that. We need to expand our family support programs, and community recognition ceremonies when they come back are very, very important, and I’d like you to participate and support those if you have the time to do that. MOAA is the foundation of doing what is right, and it has been for 75 years for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen. This partnership is strong, and the contributions are very much appreciated. But I think working together we can make even greater strides in supporting those who defended our very way of life. Just remember if you take nothing away from here, your National Guard is always ready, always there. |
