Legislature(2001 - 2002)
02/22/2001 04:05 PM Senate ASC
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
JOINT ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
February 22, 2001
4:05 p.m.
SENATE MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator Gary Wilken, Co-Chair
Senator Randy Phillips
Senator Loren Leman
Senator Drue Pearce
Senator Bettye Davis
HOUSE MEMBERS PRESENT
Representative Eldon Mulder, Co-Chair
Representative Lisa Murkowski
Representative John Harris
Representative Jeannette James
PUBLIC MEMBERS PRESENT
Jake Lestenkof (via teleconference)
John Hoyt (via teleconference)
George Vakalis (via teleconference)
Dean Owen (via teleconference)
Charles Wallace (via teleconference)
MEMBERS ABSENT
Alan Walker
Representative Reggie Joule
OTHERS PRESENT
Representative Joe Green
Representative Richard Foster
Representative Ken Lancaster
Senator Gene Therriault
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
ALASKA'S SPACE MISSION AND MILITARY FORCE PROJECTION: ADJUTANT
GENERAL PHIL OATES, DEPARTMENT OF MILITARY AND VETERANS AFFAIRS
WITNESS REGISTER
Adjutant General Phil Oates
Department of Military &
Veterans Affairs
PO Box 5800
Ft Richardson, AK 99505-0800
ACTION NARRATIVE
TAPE 01-2, SIDE A
Number 001
CO-CHAIRMAN GARY WILKEN called the Joint Armed Services Committee
meeting to order at 4:05 p.m. Present were Senators Pearce, Leman,
Davis and Co-Chair Wilken, and Representatives Murkowski, Harris,
James and Co-Chair Mulder. Also present were Representatives
Green, Foster and Lancaster. He announced that Adjutant General
Phil Oates would update the committee on Alaska's Space Mission and
National Missile Defense. He asked if there was anything to come
before the committee at this time. Hearing nothing, CO-CHAIR
WILKEN turned the meeting over to Adjutant General Oates.
ADJUTANT GENERAL PHIL OATES stated he would update the committee
about new things on the horizon as well as ongoing issues. He
pointed out the Alaska National Guard and the military in Alaska
are part of the community. As part of its community support, it
has made a major effort to help the World Winter Games of Special
Olympics. He asked Mr. Ben Stevens to discuss the Special
Olympics.
MR. BEN STEVENS acknowledged that Adjutant General Oates is one of
the strongest supporters of the Special Olympics. This year, the
Department of Military and Veterans Affairs will house 670 athletes
on various military bases in Alaska. In addition, Adjutant General
Oates has agreed to activate 375 Air Guard police to act as a
security force. Beginning on Wednesday night 2,458 participants
are confirmed to arrive from 74 nations. The event will be
spectacular for both Anchorage and the state. He invited
legislators to join the activities on March 4.
MR. STEVENS informed committee members that the $500,000 Special
Olympics request in the supplemental appropriations bill is the
final piece of a $16 million budget that the Special Olympics
Committee has assembled from a multitude of funding sources: state,
municipal, federal, and the corporate community. The $500,000 will
be used for the purpose of housing Team North America on the base,
so the military will be reimbursed for housing. In event that the
housing expense does not amount to $500,000, the unused funds will
revert back to the general fund. He thanked legislators for all of
the support they have provided since 1997, when they enacted the
guarantee for the VIC committee.
CO-CHAIRMAN WILKEN asked how many people are arriving for the
Special Olympics.
MR. STEVENS said 2,500 athletes and 200 officials and technical
delegates are participating. He anticipates about 7,000 visitors
to come through Anchorage at some point.
CO-CHAIRMAN WILKEN asked if the event will be broadcast around the
world on television.
MR. STEVENS said the television broadcast package has been
confirmed.
CO-CHAIRMAN WILKEN thanked Mr. Stevens for his work and announced
the presence of Senators Phillips and Austerman.
ADJUTANT GENERAL OATES said the business he is in is about
leadership and leadership is about people. His presentation today
is about the people he represents who make his business work. His
presentation is as follows.
I thought I'd start by telling you something that you
already know but, sometimes, if you just look at it from
a different perspective, it brings new meaning to it but
it also brings relevance to the military pieces that I'll
talk about. What I'm going to talk about here, the
Alaska National Guard, is truly unique. We're no longer
just an M-Day force - a mobilization day force. We're a
part of the daily operational mission of the armed forces
because our active duty forces have come down so much in
strength. But also here in Alaska, we're also a part of
bringing new mission relevance to all of the military in
Alaska and that's the National Guard that's doing that,
and they're also part of bringing new technology and new
economic opportunities here.
I thought I'd start out by taking this globe and this
little piece of string, and you see this piece of string
- it's a little more than one-eighth of the way around
the globe. Now many places think that they're the center
of the globe. You might pick, say, Los Angeles. You
know they think they're the center, or New York, or over
in Berlin or Beijing. But you know, as the globe turns,
if you're not near the top or the bottom of the globe,
you're not really the center because those other places
all move. There's really a lot of significance in that
when you're kind of stationary up there and you have the
same perspective all of the time.
Now we'll kind of come back to the string idea. If you
take the string up here, and you stretch it around - I'll
just put in Juneau, Anchorage or Fairbanks - suddenly you
are reaching just about 85 percent of the major developed
areas in our world. Well, you could say you can do that
from the South, too - have we got anybody from Australia
here? You don't really have that economic infrastructure.
But you take the same string and you - see, well golly,
that's a pretty good place for air routes because you can
get to places from here over the top if you think the
globe is round, quicker than you could do it from any
other place if you talk about getting to places in the
other direction as well. Look at fiber optic cable - why
is this suddenly such an important hub to the world in
the Pacific - that same string as it stretches around.
If you look at that string, if you put this string in
Kodiak, and then you stretch it down, in fact you even
double the string, look how far that you go with a launch
capability. There's no other launch facility anywhere in
the world that has that expanse of a missile range. Now
if you take this string though, and you run it straight
up over the top, where you can put something in orbit,
you can put a lot more weight up there at a lot less
cost. Plus, you've got the opportunity from that orbit,
to look down at the top of the Northern Hemisphere. If
you take that same string and put it from nations like
Iran, or Iraq, or North Korea, and you say well if they
have a missile, they're not going to shoot that missile
so it goes under, they're going to shoot that missile so
it goes over. And, so, where best to defend from that
missile? Well, here's that same location.
So there are not politics in national missile defense;
it's the physics of the problem. How can you be far
enough forward so you can see them launch from space and
from the ground, you can react to launch, you can launch
and you can see how you did in that intercept and then
you can watch again. But you can't do that anywhere else
than Alaska and that's why Alaska is winning that debate.
Now if you look at this globe, let's use the string one
other time. Where can you be forward stationed and
rearward stationed at the same time on our same nation's
soil? Well you can only do that in Alaska. We talk
about foreign deployed forces. That's been our doctrine
ever since the end of the Korean War, to position our
forces forward. But as our forces have come down we
can't have them everywhere, and since we can't have them
everywhere, they've started coming back to the United
States and rapid deployment has become the norm du jour.
And so where can you be rapidly deployable and on our
same soil and rapidly deployable to all of these places?
Well, Alaska, and that's one reason Alaska is growing in
significance.
Now when you look at Alaska as well, what do you see
happening in the Lower 48 and indeed the rest of the
world? You see population growth, you see environmental
restrictions, you see congested air corridors, you see
congested sea corridors, you see people saying, not in my
backyard with military training. That's not the case
here in Alaska and it's not the case because of this
group. It's because of our citizens and their support.
Their long standing identification with the military - in
fact our common history and heritage, but it's also
because we've got the expanse and we don't have the
environmental restrictions in our military training
areas. We've got that expanse of - wide expansive air
training corridors where you can fly an F-22 and you can
do it supersonically. You can't do that in the Lower 48.
Can you imagine F-22s supersonically out of, you know,
the Washington, D.C. area. You'd probably get a few - if
you were in the legislature there you'd probably be
getting some phone calls. So Alaska is the place where
you can train. You can train from the air, you can train
on the ground, you can shoot live, you can train from the
sea. That's going to grow and grow and grow in
importance.
There for awhile, and I've been telling this story as you
know, along with Senator Wilken, I've actually had the
Sixth Division up there. How many times have you heard a
similar - a variation of this story? It certainly goes
back 10 years and maybe even more - trying to get people
to listen and to understand, with what we just did with
the string and the relevance of the training
opportunities. It's getting pretty darn close to
happening. People are recognizing the relevance of the
military here and recognizing the relevance of this
string and this globe.
So that kind of sets the stage for what I'm going to talk
about. But I would say - I'm leaving tonight to go to
Washington, D.C. to participate in a meeting of the
Adjutant Generals Association of the United States. In
part of that meeting, the Governor has asked myself and
President Hamilton to go by and see Jim Evatt of Boeing.
The reason for visiting Jim Evatt is he is the new head
of the national missile defense effort for Boeing. He is
the prime contractor. He's also the government
representative and, by the way, he's also a retired
military air force officer.
But the reason we're going to see Boeing is Boeing
appears to be very, very happy to take their business to
Alaska but doesn't seem to be engaged in doing their
business from Alaska, similar to what they do in
Huntsville or what they do in Seattle. And a lot of that
is the same reason - they just don't understand the
opportunities that are up here. And those opportunities
begin, as this group knows so well, with our Native
corporate structure that gives you business advantages.
It begins with our fiber optic connectivity that allows
you to export your ones and your zeroes in and out
anywhere in the world. With our air cargo industry and a
growing maintenance capacity for that cargo industry that
is going up here and aircraft, and Boeing aircraft in the
military and C-17s that they want to give to the National
Guard and we want to take and - I'll come back to why
those are so important. It's so important for our
National Guard. To our launch facilities at Kodiak and
Poker Flats - and we talked about that launch facility
and its increased relevance for military testing and
national missile defense activities - Northern Edge and
other areas. To the University and its supercomputer
capacity - its global logistics, its geophysical
institute and the business that Boeing can do there - to
our cold weather testing, to our military
experimentation, our ranges, our training and use of
weapons and procedures that Boeing is developing, our
polar launch capacity.
And so, for all of those reasons we need to tell Boeing,
you know, it's not good enough just to export your
business into Alaska. You need to come to Alaska and be a
part here. [Indisc.] will explore is a joint invitation
from the Governor and this group to get the right people
up here from Boeing and show them these opportunities.
Now let's talk about the Alaska National Guard because
that's truly what I came here to talk about. We are,
really, we're the old and we're the new. The genesis of
our Alaska National Guard began in the World War II era.
It has its lineage back to the Alaska Territorial Guard,
the Eskimo Scouts, the Cold War days and, in fact, the
mission was fairly constant through those Cold War days
of being scouts out on the frontier and looking across at
the Red Bear that was over there. And we were well
suited for that mission. Our people that lived in those
locations, our Native people, they were superb at that
mission of living in the Arctic, being scouts in the
Arctic and being the eyes and ears of our nation out here
in the piece of real estate that was closest to the USSR.
But then when the wall came down, that mission changed
and we went almost eight years without having a work plan
or a strategically relevant mission.
Now that is changing now and we are now in the world plan
for critical site defense. This is important and I'll
just take a couple of minutes to describe - the Army
National Guard, why that's an important mission for us.
As Representative Foster knows, critical site defense
exercises the basic infantry skills. You've got to know
the basics of shooting your weapon, of building defensive
positions, of how to defend something, how to
communicate, how to scout things, and how to protect that
infrastructure. And that's important because we have 74
locations around the state and you have to do it
basically on the individual level because we don't have
the resources to pull everybody together for higher
collective training. It's hard to be a transportation
battalion when you don't have any roads. It's hard to be
a [indisc.] defense battalion in these remote areas when
you don't have the ability to come together and train
routinely. So we want to hold on to that identity - to
that scout identity. We want to grow this mission of
critical site defense and we can export that. We can
export that to Korea to defend an air field. We could do
it here in Alaska to defend national missile defense
sites if we need to do that. We could do it here to
defend other sites. So it's a mission we can get our
arms around and we can do.
But we also want to take some of that Army Guard
structure and we want to do something else with it and we
don't want to lose that scout presence in rural Alaska.
And to have this [indisc.] we call the group
headquarters, we need three battalions of infantry or
scouts, so how do we get those battalions and start
transforming some of this structure that we've got - this
Army Guard structure into something different. Well a
great way is to partner with other states. Now we
already do that with California and our support battalion
and Army Guard structure. They have some of our
companies for our support battalion structure. We
already do that with Hawaii. Hawaii has a company of our
aviation battalion. So taking that same concept - we go
partly with other states, like Vermont and Maine, and
maybe then transform one of our battalions into something
that is brand new - a national missile defense battalion.
We wouldn't want to do that if it put this other
structure at jeopardy, but if we partner with these other
states we can take some of this and do something else
with it.
Now why is that important? You see, my mission, when we
talk about national missile defense, is the mission of
being a first provider and being responsible for the
recruiting, the retention, the professional development,
the quality of life, and taking care of the families and
their training to allow them to do their job and to be
professionally developed in the process. We are not the
people that will fight the national missile defense
system. That will be done through a structure that will
go from the battalion on the ground here through the US
Army Space Command through the US Space Command up to the
national command authority and we'll have also the NORAD,
and the Alaska NORAD region involved.
So that's not our mission. Our mission is the people
mission. When you think of national missile defenses,
you think about a small group of people to do that job.
Any time that you have a small group of people that do a
job and it's a very technical and specific job, and you
do it in remote places like Fort Greeley and Shimyea,
it's hard to continually maintain the manning bases to
keep that mission going. You're pyramid is very flat.
Not a lot of numbers. Not a lot of opportunity for
professional development. So how do we start getting
around that? How do we make this pyramid a little
steeper?
Well, one idea, if the decision is made to fuel this, is
to start with a foundation that we would call a
traditional guard foundation. That's the weekend warrior
that you may have heard of. It's the traditional
guardsman, it's your neighbor. It's those people that
you represent here in Juneau. They'd do this because
it's a labor of love, they want to be a part of the
military, they want to be a part of the service. By
having that type of structure underneath it gives you
depth that the full-timers can go for part-timers when
the contractors hire them away because they're trained,
and believe me that will happen. It also gives you the
opportunity to take the part-timers to be the full-timers
when you go one or two short. So that's the initial
piece of the puzzle.
Number 1331
Now the next piece of the puzzle is you have to build a
pyramid that includes other states. Now who are the
other states we're talking with here? We're talking
about Colorado, Cheyenne Mountain - the home of the
brigade of the national missile defense system, we're
talking about New Mexico where you do the basic air
defense type of training that we use, you were talking
about states like Alabama, the home of Huntsville and
also our National Guard that's involved in their defense
type training, we're talking about Florida that has
similar skills, we're talking about North Dakota that is
also in a race to have some type of role in national
missile defense. So suddenly we're looking at a national
guard that is just not centered on a state but it has
some ability to rotate. Now this is sounding -
especially - kind of like an active duty bunch of guys.
You know, you kind of PCS around. But we know how to get
there but if we don't build in that type of flexibility,
we will forever more be recruiting, training, putting
them in jobs and recruiting and training and putting them
in jobs like they're going to be going out the back door.
We've got to have the ability to rotate - you know,
rotation in the state will be some of the pieces for NMD
will be in Anchorage, the ultimate command post, the site
activation command, our headquarters initially that will
be building this. Some of the pieces will be at Fort
Greeley, the missile field, the battalion headquarters,
the families that live there. Some of the pieces will be
at Clear, the upgraded early warning radar, space
surveillance - that's the space surveillance radar for
that system. And you know, by the way, and I'll talk
about, it will be National Guard manning as well - some
of the people will be at Shimyea, on a rotation there.
Some of the people will be in that traditional guard
location, and where would that best be? Well, if you ask
me right now, you know, we haven't got a firm plan, I
think probably Fairbanks would be a good place. We've
got a brand new armory there, we've got the University,
we've got the ROTC element there, we've got a large
enough community where we could have a traditional guard
battalion. You've got to have some population or your
not going to be able to recruit. So maybe Fairbanks,
maybe some of those scouts there. We'll start
transforming them and maybe we'll partner with one of
those other states.
Then you've got to develop personnel rules for the
National Guard so take this [indisc.] professional
development and this rotation. We go off to send one of
these great guards members to North Dakota and Colorado,
and then when they want to come back, they can't get back
in the door. That's not fair to them and ultimately that
will fail too. So we've got to have some reemployment
rights and we've got to have some flexibility with
National Guard so even if we don't have a slot we still
give them a job.
We've got to have personnel rules in place that recognize
these are hardship assignments. The military for years
and years has given extra incentives for the promotion or
pay or benefits if you're in a hardship assignment. We
need to do that for the National Guard. And suddenly you
see the Alaska National Guard is becoming the champion of
a new way of doing business. And this is also the same
hook that's going to bring Boeing up here. This is a big
deal. It's a big deal not only because of its military
significance, it's a big deal because we're plowing new
ground in the National Guard and what we do in this
nation. It's also a big deal for what it does to
education, ROTC, fiber connectivity, [indisc.] from AADC,
technical opportunities, other economic opportunities.
This is the hook. So if no other reason than that, it's
an important thing.
Now I've given a lot of presentations on the national
level debate on national missile defense. I won't go on
to that here, today. But I am also firmly in favor of
our nation having national missile defense. It's quite
simply - you hear people argue, well it won't protect
against all hazards - the satchel charge, if somebody
brings it up - the cruise missile, the thuds and
[indisc.] that come down - I don't know where they come
from, maybe Canada or Mexico. Well, it won't protect
against them but it's like an airbag in your car and the
airbag won't protect you getting hit by a train but it
will sure help you out and provide you with [indisc.]
protection.
The Congress is responsible for the defense of this
nation. They [indisc.] in front of all of us, including
the military so we're vulnerable. We have no defenses
against this. As soon as it's technically feasible we're
going to have it so I think that's safe to say - we're
going to have it and we can talk about the timelines but
I wanted everybody to hear the piece about what is that
going to do to the National Guard. That's pretty
significant.
Now let me fast forward over to a mission over on the Air
Guard side. We could get a lot more sophistication on
national missile defense but in the interest of time and
cover some other areas. Let's talk about C-17s. C-17 is
the new military transport that our nation's military is
going to use. It's going to replace the C-141,
ultimately the C-5, and even the C-130s. This is the
transport plane of the future.
Our National Guard will be the second state, behind
Mississippi, to receive C-17s and I think you'll see a
decision that will do this this year. And these, we had
some agreement, the active military and the National
Guard, that this will be a National Guard unit. Now how
do you think that is? Wouldn't you kind of think, well
wouldn't those active duty guys rather have those and be
able to control them. This is the Alaska National Guard
not the National Alaska Guard - although you see us
transforming into more and more operational missions,
first provider missions. The active duty military -
they're pretty smart fellows. They see what the Alaska
National Guard has in Alaska as opposed to US
Transportation Command and Air Mobility Command. If the
National Guard has it, we can use it more as a Pacific
resource. We have more ability to keep it in the
Pacific.
Now what does that do for Alaska? That makes suddenly
Alaska more relevant as a strategic force because it has
the polar ability, because it has its own strategic
assets to use that. And that aircraft also has relevance
to our state missions. They can land at about 80 percent
of the airfields in Alaska - the C-17s. Now you're
probably not going to land it on a gravel strip out at
Fort Yukon, but you could do it if you had to. We would
also keep our C-130s. We'll still have four HC-130s -
our refueling C-130s. As part of this package, we want
to give them a roll off capability for refueling so we
can have them as our standard transport aircraft or they
could be used for a refueling mission.
But who again with the C-17s? This is not only - it's
making us a first provider but it's the Alaska National
Guard that is leading the way into making us more
strategically relevant, whether it's national missile
defense or whether it's strategic transport with the C-
17s. That's pretty significant.
We've got this National Guard in - on one-hand, our
identity is with the scouts and the Cold War. We're
adjusting that to keep that alive today and into
tomorrow. At the same time, we're getting involved in
space and force provider missions. Those force provider
missions are not only in what we are doing that match the
missile defense for providing the forces to US Army Space
Command. Our C-17s, where we're providing the strategic
airlift capability to CINC PAC and to the PAC-AF
Commander and to the Alcom Commander, but it's also - we
anticipate a decision here, probably this week, at least
this month, to go ahead and assume over a four-year
period the responsibility for taking over the manning of
the RAOC - the Regional Air Operations Center for the
Alaska NORAD Region. This would bring in about 148
military positions to our National Guard. And that's
important for the state because suddenly we have Alaskans
doing these missions - Alaskans and their families who
will stay here in the state doing those missions and also
we're gaining technical expertise. And also, remember
the pyramid I talked about, it's real important that this
pyramid get a little bit steeper, and you do that by
building common mission sites that people can rotate to.
Where else could they rotate? Well, that's also the
ultimate command post, we'll be the ultimate command post
for national missile defense. [Indisc.] That's also
skill sets that you see at Clear. Now, we're further
away from decisions that start the manning at Clear. In
fact, we hit a pothole in the road just this last couple
of weeks because people are nervous whether the Alaska
National Guard can maintain the manning in a remote
location and assume this whole mission.
I think it's fair to say that of those approximately 100
positions, that we can do most of them, if not all of
them, so our proposal back to them is to start evolving
into it and just see how far we can go. But the more
structure we give out there and the steeper the pyramid,
and the smarter we build these units and build a
foundation of traditional guard bases rotational
opportunities, and attractive packages, I think we can do
that because we've seen, ever since WWII, that the
military likes to be stationed in Alaska.
We pick off a lot of low hanging fruit from the active
duty military that comes here. And there's another
important consideration here, that the state is involved
in some expense for our National Guard. That's part of
the package. It's not a bad deal. You give us about $10
million and we give you about $330 million. That's a
pretty good investment. Now we've seen that in the
support we've had from the committees. But these two new
missions are kind of neat because we get the missions, we
get the people, we provide the forces but somebody else
pays for the infrastructure. So that's the direction
we're trying to go to. But hey, if we're going to become
force providers, we want you to pay more of the freight,
especially on these national level missions.
And while all of these have a cost involved, but I think
we have the right to go out and seek alternative ways of
funding for this. When you talk about the money coming
in, that C-17 mission that we expect to see in Elmendorf,
they have about $100 million in military construction
connected with that mission to build a facility.
The other piece of the debate is, should it just be a
hangar and a headquarters of the C-17 or should we build
it a little bigger for the C-5? Initially I said well
let's don't put C-5s in there too - let's just deal with
C-17 because the C-5s break more often and they'll be in
the hangar all of the time - I won't be able to get our
airplanes in there. But then I thought, well wait a
minute, wait a minute - if we make it for the C-5s I've
got a better bargaining chip to make the active duty
military pay for it. I say, okay, you use my hangar but
you've got to pay for the maintenance, the lights, the
water and all that stuff. So I think that's worth
carefully looking at.
The other missions that are coming up - we are force
providers in the rescue business and the RCC. We
actually provide the forces to General Schwartz and he
fights the forces, and they prosecute about one rescue a
day over time. Those are Alaska Guardsmen that are doing
that. We're also the force provider with 168 - they're
our refueling ring. We provide the Alert aircraft, the
KC 135 tanker, that provides a refueling capability
everyday for third sovereignty air defense here in
Alaska. That's an Alaska Guard plane.
We're a force provider in that we provide the forces to
plan all movements of aircraft to Alaska. We actually do
the planning, we approve the planning, we execute the
plan. If we had a major movement through here, the North
PAC route, it's your Alaska National Guard that is the
hub of admiral control of that area refueling effort and
all the other refueling rings that come up here.
You saw these recent missile launches - there are some
classified missions where we provide the refueling
support for that and the capability for that so we can
monitor how those launches are going over in Russia.
That's the Alaska National Guard doing that force
provider part.
The other thing we're looking at as a new mission set is
providing the range control, range safety for the Alaska
Aerospace Development Corporation - AADC. The [indisc.]
guard does that now. Now our challenge is, it's not a
military mission so we have to be creative in how we
combine the skill sets, but by taking on that mission, it
gets us with another level in space. It's really unique
here.
Again, I'll go back to the point. We have one foot in
our Cold War identity of scouts and are protecting that.
We have one foot, or one leg of that stool is a better
way since we've got three feet here, one leg as a force
provider, and then we've got one leg of that stool in
space. That's pretty neat as we're expanding that out.
So we're going out and seeking those missions.
My biggest concern here is, can we recruit, retain the
full structure that we need for all of these new mission
opportunities? My answer is, if we build it right we
can. And my answer is to you, if we continue to get your
support we can.
The other thing I think is, we are working with [indisc.]
PAC to establish a combat search and rescue center of
excellence for Pacific command here. Who does search and
rescue better than anybody else? I suspect we're on the
top of that list because we're out there doing it just
about every day in some pretty darn tough conditions but,
also outfitting our aircraft. On the Army Guard side, we
have suddenly grown more sophisticated search and rescue
helicopters than you see anywhere else in the Army
structure. That's because we can make a case for it.
That's because we needed the capacity here because of the
missions we're flying and suddenly the sinking crew is
looking and says, wow, they've got better capability than
I do. We're also growing that to give us more relevance
because the way you keep the National Guard alive is you
get them relevant - strategic level missions. So, at the
same time we're doing the Center of Excellence for
Pacific Command and search and rescue, we're building an
Army capability that has not existed before this time.
Number 2092
I think it's also well we talk about diversity. Some 30
percent of the Army Guard is Native, Native Alaskan.
Unfortunately, too much of that is at the bottom and
we've lost the ability to have that diversity throughout.
But the Air Guard's a little different story. Their
percentages of Native participation are not as much,
because they are located primarily in the Fairbanks-
Eielson area and the Anchorage area. Their technical
skills are greater but I would like to mention to you
real briefly, 36 members of Native Americans in the Air
Guard - we have four chief master sergeants, two senior
master sergeants, and four master sergeants. Last summer
we graduated our first navigator who is an Alaska Native,
Second Lt. Chris Prince (ph). The Command Chief Master
Sergeant of the entire Alaska Air National Guard was
Chief [indisc.] Ricky and he is an Alaska Native as well,
so we're proud of that. So the [indisc.] in education
and leadership and training is what we're about.
All of this fits together. Now let me just talk about
what we're doing in other areas with the Alaska Army
National Guard. We talked about the changing and
evolution and scout battalions mission to a mission that
they can still take pride in and do well and partner with
some other states. We're also going on a rural affairs
initiative. And our rural affairs initiative is to take
all of the things that we do in rural Alaska with the
purpose of increasing our image, our prestige, our
recruiting, our retention, our education and make it, yet
again, proud to be in the military and proud to be in the
National Guard. We do a lot of things in rural Alaska.
We have some presence there. We have drug demand
reduction efforts there. We have emergency services
efforts there. We have [indisc.] readiness training
projects there. We have distance learning efforts there.
So the thought is, why don't we get a link with our past
through a program called Regimental [indisc.] Sergeants
Major, and use that link with our past to make sure the
National Guard of today takes a chapter out of the book
of the active military and their regimental colonels that
we stole from the British, and our Native population, our
elders and their importance, and make sure we understand
the culture, the needs, and what it takes us to be
successful but at the same time focus pieces in one area
at a time and grow Junior ROTC and fix the education
system from a military perspective, and make sure we can
do the recruiting, the retention, the professional
development so we can continue the strong presence in
rural Alaska.
[Indisc.] We now have real significant distance learning
capabilities to the National Guard. Out of my
headquarters at Ft. Richardson, and these are fully
interactive, video capable, computer automated classrooms
with distance learning packages to work on the education
because we can't all come together every time we need to
do stuff. We've also established those centers in Nome,
in Bethel, and in Fairbanks. We're also partnering with
the University to look at all of our band width
requirements and we've identified what band width we
needed, every company level location throughout rural
Alaska. Again, to use our military requirements to help
grow the educational requirements throughout the state.
Recruiting and retention is the biggest challenge I have.
We've put retention NCO in our three rural battalions to
work permanently on that. My recruiting is stronger than
my retention so I've got to work on both ends of that.
The retention is tied to professional development and
making sure that the soldiers in the [indisc.] have valid
military jobs to do and we can keep them in the National
Guard.
Some other things that we're doing - we have a fully
manned weapons of mass destruction civil support team so
we're able to go out and provide forces on an interagency
basis for any community first responder and assist them
in the rapid assessment identification detection of any
weapons of mass destruction use and fully protect our
individuals and fully and rapidly identify the hazard
that is there and to rapidly recommend to those force
responders what action should they take in a chemical
incident or a biological incident or a nuclear incident.
Pretty significant capability, especially if you consider
that the threat to our society in the future is going to
be an asymmetric threat. It's not going to be an attack
on our shores. It's not going to be another Desert
Storm-Desert Shield, but it will be these asymmetric
attacks on our communications infrastructure, on our
power grids, weapons of mass destruction that can easily
be brought in and that's another way we'll [indisc.].
The last thing I'll talk about is we're also working with
other states to establish a compact so we can more
readily go to their defense and they can come to our
defense on any significant emergency matter. One thing
that we're establishing this year is a 24 hour day, 7 day
a week, 365 day a year, state emergency coordination
center capability that will do - when all these [indisc.]
pieces together rapidly. Now that I've been in my job
for two years and my job begins with emergency response,
we are not ready to rapidly respond. We'll do a very,
very good job when we get spun up. There's a lot of
scenarios here that don't give us the time to get spun
up. It's not people in that center to just be there to
answer the phone - people that know who the right people
are to call and contact wherever they are in the state at
the first responder level to the legislative level to the
state level to the state police. It's people that have
got a practice checklist for - those of you that have
been in the military understand SOPs and practice and
training and you fight the way you train and if you don't
have those checklists and know what to do and know who to
go to get the resources, you don't know where the
resources are in the state, and you don't know which
buttons to push to get the military response, the FEMA
response, the first agency response, you're going to lose
so many lives in the first 72 hours that you'll never
recover from it. You'll continually deal with that
crisis and why weren't you ready to do this. That piece
is integrated with the military piece and the national
guard's piece.
I'll say, kind of in conclusion, the Alaska National
Guard - it's the Alaska National Guard and our first
mission begins with responding to the emergencies of the
citizens of this state. We will protect that and at the
same time we're going to lead our nation into new mission
areas and at the same time that we're leading the nation
into new mission areas, we are going to grow
opportunities for Alaska.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity to speak.
In many ways - I know I'm singing to the choir here
because everybody on this committee [indisc.] and we have
your support individually and even at the national level
now, with Senator Pearce and her Defense Advisory
Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS).
TAPE 01-2, SIDE B
CO-CHAIRMAN MULDER noted the Alaska National Guard received
$100,000 last year for tuition assistance. He asked whether that
program has been effective and whether Major General Oates would
encourage its continuation.
ADJUTANT GENERAL OATES said it is the single, most effective
recruiting and professional tool he has. It is the biggest impact
states can have on recruitment and retention. The basis of the
military today and the technical missions I'm talking about require
education and continuing education. It had a tremendous effect
throughout the Guard. He didn't think there is anything more
important that the legislature could do than continue the tuition
assistance program.
CO-CHAIRMAN MULDER noted if the Alaska National Guard's role is
expanding, filling the ranks will be a challenge. He asked whether
the tuition assistance program will be a critical component in
filling those ranks.
ADJUTANT GENERAL OATES said some states have paid full tuition at
their state universities for members of the national guard. Someday
that will be worth exploring in Alaska.
SENATOR AUSTERMAN asked whether the Alaska National Guard currently
has an incentive program to join.
ADJUTANT GENERAL OATES said it has many: a new Army incentive
provides for laptop computers for new recruits, which enables
recruits to take distance learning courses; tuition assistance; and
bonuses for shortage skills. The military has always operated on
the basis of having a very proactive program to recruit and retain
through promotions and education for professional development. He
noted the Alaska National Guard has seen tremendous growth in
recruitment in Kodiak.
SENATOR AUSTERMAN asked if the Alaska National Guard offers a cash
bonus for enlistment.
ADJUTANT GENERAL OATES said that bonus changes over time so he
would get back to Senator Austerman with an answer.
REPRESENTATIVE MURKOWSKI asked when the C-17s are coming.
ADJUTANT GENERAL OATES thought the decision to buy additional C-17s
for Alaska and Hawaii will be made this year. He thought the
earliest they would be here is in three or four years. He noted he
believes it is very important that Alaska get eight C-17s. He
believes it is very important that we have a unit that, although it
is a national guard unit, is associated and has active duty crew
members and Air Force reserve crew members in the unit at the same
time. That brings the strength of all to the equation.
Number 360
CO-CHAIRMAN WILKEN asked what numbers are involved with the C-17s,
national missile defense and increased recruitment.
ADJUTANT GENERAL OATES answered the number for national missile
defense is appro[LEC1]ximately 300. The numbers to assume the air
operations center at Alaska NORAD Region is about 148. If the
Alaska National Guard assumes the entire mission at Clear, that
will total about 90. The C-17 mission would probably not mean an
increase in numbers because the military would be giving away some
C-130s. Over five years he estimated an increase of 500 to 1,000
people.
CO-CHAIRMAN MULDER asked Adjutant General Oates if he would give a
presentation to the committee on ballistic missile defense at
another time. He plans to meet with Major General Nance and will
invite him to Alaska. In addition, General Kadish will be visiting
Fairbanks. He said that in the near future, a decision to move
materials to Shimyea may be made. That may be done in advance of
the national missile defense decision because national missile
defense is a threat based program. Moving materials there will not
break the ABM Treaty. Two significant events coming up are a
booster test in the next two to three months and the next
integrated flight test in May or June. If those two tests work, he
believes there is a good chance the President will decide to
proceed.
Number 678
CO-CHAIRMAN WILKEN commended Adjutant General Oates for his service
in Alaska and the country. He announced that all members are
invited to Northern Edge in Ketchikan on March 21 and then
adjourned the meeting at 5:01 p.m.
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