During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Friday, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-NE) asked Army Chief of Staff Randy A. George about military recruiting.
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00:00Thank you very much. Senator Ernst. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, gentlemen, for being here today, Secretary Driscoll and General George. I'm always inspired by your willingness to move our great Army forward. So thank you for that. And I just want to take a brief moment and address some of the concerns as well that have been expressed by my colleagues about the utilization of the National Guard.
00:24And having been a longtime National Guard member, I say the more that we can use our soldiers in jobs that are appropriate for our soldiers, I say go for it. My soldiers always looked for those opportunities to volunteer to serve in those types of capacities.
00:41So whether they're working in logistics opportunities, they're fueling vehicles, they're repairing vehicles, if they are a transportation soldier, they're a transporter, they want to be able to drive, you know, whatever it happens to be, we can always further their skills by having those types of mobilizations.
01:03We also just saw mobilization of 1,800 Iowa Army National Guardsmen. They are going overseas. It is a different type of mission than what we would see here in the United States. But we want to wish them Godspeed. We had a number of send-offs over the course of this past week.
01:22And just talking about transformation, I want to continue on with that theme. We're going through a lot of reforms for modernization. And you also have had some really notable progress in recruiting and retention.
01:38So, General George, if I could start with you. We're only midway through the year and you've already met the Army's recruiting mission or their goals. So can you talk to us a little bit about how that has been possible and what you see as the motivating factor right now for young men and women deciding to serve in our great United States Army?
02:01I think that's a lot. I would love to give my ranger buddy here an opportunity to jump in on that one, too. I think it starts with leadership. It has been picking the right recruiters. Our recruiters are doing great. We're trying to give them also the right technology.
02:18One example is using something right off the shelf so that people aren't filling out, which you're very familiar with, hundreds of forms, that it's down to something that's very simple so that our recruiters can get out there and talk about the Army.
02:33In the end, I think they want to join the people that are out there, and we need to make sure that we continue to do that. They want to join a team that has a great mission and a great purpose, and I think it's a great start for their life.
02:48And I think that that's the biggest thing, and we need to continue to get after that.
02:51Agreed. Thank you. Secretary.
02:52Senator, I was going to say one of the ways we look at retention and recruiting is as a trailing and a leading indicator of the health of the Army. And so on the leading indicator side, do young people want to come join an organization that is returning to its lethality roots, it's pushing for excellence? Do they want that? And very excitingly, eight months into our 12-month goal, we hit the annual goal.
03:17On the retention side, those are the soldiers that are every single day seeing, is there leadership? Are there senators? Is the bureaucracy delivering to them what they need to stay in?
03:29And even more exciting to us is we hit that 12-month goal six months into the year. And so we think of these as very good indicators that the Army is in a healthy spot with our humans.
03:39It's really, really astounding. And I appreciate the remarkable work that you both have done.
03:44Now, I did introduce the CERV Act, and that will improve the connection between service opportunities and local communities.
03:52And I'm really, really excited about the opportunity to get that passed this year.
03:59Again, going back to the Army transformation, I really do support the initiative and its efforts to redirect resources toward emerging capabilities,
04:10like the counter-UAS, you know, electronic warfare, air defense.
04:15We saw what happened in Russia with the Ukrainian drone attack.
04:19Really sobering reminder on how modern warfare is changing and how we need to adapt.
04:27So we're seeing the right kind of change within the Army. So again, kudos to you.
04:32We've got a bottom-up transformation. We've got experimentation and contact and smart divestments.
04:39So thank you for being willing to take some of those hard challenges on.
04:44You're making those hard choices. You're cutting positions and you're reinvesting in our operational needs.
04:51And again, I know how tough that is. But Secretary Driscoll, how is the Army adapting its training and talent management
04:58to support these more technical kinds of units and our operational needs?
05:04So to training, one of the most, and just to reinforce the bottom-up concept, I was down at Fort Jackson a couple weeks ago,
05:11which is where I did basic training 19 years, 18 years ago. And you do these lanes five weeks into the course.
05:17So these are soldiers who've been in the United States Army for five weeks.
05:21And what their drill sergeants had done is they had gotten drones to film them in the lanes.
05:26And then in their after-action review, they would actually look and see, what do I look like from a drone's view?
05:32But then this is the part that's so remarkable to me. Each time they iterated, so each time a drill sergeant
05:37took soldiers through this event, they learned something from these soldiers who were five weeks in.
05:42And those learnings have trickled up from Fort Jackson, South Carolina, the Pentagon,
05:46and have actually changed some of the ways that we are telling people to engage with drones,
05:51which is just absolutely remarkable.
05:53That's amazing. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
05:56Thank you, Senator.