Gil Cisneros Presses Spec Ops Official About Ensuring Safety In SOF Training Exercises

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During a House Armed Services Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-CA) questioned General Bryan P. Fenton, Commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, about prioritizing safety in training exercises.

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00:00Thank you Mr. Chairman and thank our witnesses for being here today. As a

00:04former USD of PNR, I feel like I have to defend Genesis in the sense of what it

00:10does and the fact that it does give a picture of looking at the old medical

00:13thing, but it is the services, not Genesis, that decides what is acceptable

00:19medically and what is not. But with that, being the former USD PNR, readiness was

00:25part of my portfolio and training fell under under that, so my first question

00:30General Fenton is going to be about training and there was a GAO report that

00:36came out that said most training accidents are a result of human error and

00:40concerning SOCOM lacks the funding to fully implement the training oversight

00:44program. So does SOCOM have any plan to conduct any analysis of negative

00:50safety trends or reevaluate training assessment programs since it was

00:54reported that 80% of non-combat incidents come from training?

01:00Representative, I'll start by saying first, any accident training or worse yet a

01:05death is absolutely not what we're all about. We are about rigorous, arduous

01:13training so that if an event some of our teammates go into combat, that combat is

01:19easier than the training they've seen and the training we will do over and over

01:22again. I would take a little bit of umbrage or maybe even dispute with the fact

01:28that we don't do continual assessments of the safety in our various training

01:32courses. We do. We have a lot of training courses, assessment selection for our Army

01:37teammates, Air Force teammates, Marine teammates, Navy teammates and those are

01:41looked at consistently, usually by what I would call an outer cordon of medical

01:46safety, very experienced civilian personnel to continue to address that. That's our

01:56sacred obligation to the moms and dads that send us their sons and daughters for

02:02these kind of standards-based training and we do that. So I think we're always in

02:06that motion. We continually strive to have the very hardest training we can while

02:12protecting the teammates that are certainly the national treasure sent to us by this nation.

02:16Do you, but do you have the funding that you need in order to implement the training

02:21oversight programs and do ensuring that the safety of the training is at max capacity there?

02:28Representative, first I'll start, no. I talk about it in terms of modernization and I think

02:34as I laid out in the opening statement, and we'll continue to come back to, training and training exercises,

02:40along with modernizing authorities, modernizing technology, and when I talk about people,

02:44certainly I start with humans more important than hardware, long-held special operations command,

02:50truth and education for uncertainty as part of modernization, and that's our humans. We absolutely

02:58need more money to make sure we're doing that and keeping up, especially as we make our training exercises,

03:03not our assessment selection processes, more complex, more complicated, so that we emulate what we're

03:09actually seeing on the environment now. Integrated Air and Missile Defense, it's no longer just about

03:15OPSEC and distance. Now it's almost pure adversary systems everywhere. So I think absolutely, Representative.

03:21Well, thank you, and I understand. I mean, the training, like you said, the job and the missions that

03:26your service members go out and have to do, they need to train at optimum levels. But we need to make sure,

03:33and I think, I don't want to speak for the committee, but I will do what I can to ensure that you have the funding,

03:38to ensure that you have the safety standards that you need to ensure that it's safe.

03:41Thank you, Representative. Mr. Jenkins, just one question for you here, sir.

03:47You know, Congress created, like, the special operation forces there to kind of almost make

03:51it like another service, but yet it's not really another service because, you know, you're not like a,

03:58you're not in the acting role as a service chief. You're really kind of, I think, at an assistant

04:04secretary level there, right? So do you feel that the fact that they've kind of taken this and kind

04:10of put it in there and started this off, they're away from the services, that that has kind of had an

04:15effect on the funding as to maybe why the services may not be funding this or it's not getting funded

04:22at the level because you're not at an equal level and yet the services don't have control over this

04:26anymore so they're not putting in the assets that they used to? Perhaps you've landed on some key

04:33points there, and we are grateful to Congress that SOLIC exists so that we do have those service-like

04:38capabilities. I do wear two hats where I am a service-like advisor to the SECDEF, but I'm also

04:45a policy advisor, so it's a unique ASD ship, as you said. And so, yes, we are constantly keeping our

04:50elbow sharp, making sure that we're at the correct tables with our service counterparts, and that as they

04:55ponder cuts, we can defend our own equities and make sure that they understand a cut here in the Army

05:00affects Army soft down here, or a cut in the Navy affects Naval Special Warfare as well. So we

05:06we certainly are grateful for Congress, the reinforcement that we receive. All right, I yield back

05:10another time. Thank you, sir. Mr. Luttrell, you're now recognized for five minutes.

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