The senior enlisted advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Command Sgt. Maj. John W. Troxell, and the top senior enlisted leaders from seven of combatant commands and two sub-unified combatant commands answer questions from reporters at the Pentagon, July 24, 2019. Their briefing focused on joint operations, global integration and international partnership.
Transcript
Let’s all have a seat gentlemen. Okay so what I’m gonna do for the second round since I already did my opening statement is I’m gonna introduce the folks I have up here. As I mentioned earlier I’ve got seven of the Combatant Command senior enlisted leaders here and I’ve got one sub-unified command, US Forces Afghanistan here so I’m gonna start on the far left down here and it’s the Command Senior Enlisted Leader of US Transportation Command Chief Master Jay France. Next to him is the Command Senior Enlisted Leader of US NORAD NORTHCOM Sergeant Major Paul McKenna. Next to him is the Senior Enlisted Leader of US Forces Afghanistan Resolute Support and every other acronym that comes out of Afghanistan, Command Sergeant Major Tim McPheeny. Near to my left is Command Senior Enlisted Leader of US Indo PACOM Sergeant Major Anthony Spadaro. Immediate right is the Command Senior Enlisted Leader of US European Command Fleet Master Chief Chris Addington. To his immediate right is the Command Senior Enlisted Leader of US Southern Command Sergeant Major Brian Zickefoose. Next to him is the Command Senior Enlisted Leader, the new Command Senior Enlisted Leader of US Special Operations Command Chief Master Sergeant Grant Smith. And last but not least on the end is the Command Senior Enlisted Leader of US Cyber Command National Security Agency Master Gunner Sergeant Scott Stalker. And with that we will take your questions.
Sir so I think this may be a question probably for you and for Gunnery Sergeant Stalker. So Congress for the officer side of things has kind of broken up the promotion system, made things a little less rigid, do you see any need for that in the enlisted side for recruiting reasons, for retainment reasons, in changing the way that retention control points are used or I don’t know about direct commissioning but maybe bring someone in at the sergeant level rather than bringing them all the way up from a private level, those sorts of changes.
So, as I mentioned in my opening statement, the strength of our military is our enlisted force. And the backbone is our enlisted leaders. Those non-commissioned officers and petty officers that are executing mission command on any given day. And that didn’t just happen overnight that all of a sudden we can trust and empower them to get after. It’s through a process of service indoctrination and education that has brought them up to this requisite rank that they’re at through education experiences but also exposure in the joint world and through joint education. So in terms of building the leaders that we need on the enlisted side to get after the men and women everyday and get them to reach their own tap of potential, have them ready to fight and win and make sure that we’re taking care of them and their family, our process through our non-commissioned officer petty officer education system is critical in building the leaders we need for this dynamic environment. And because cyber is a growing war fighting domain that we have to pay attention to I will turn it over to Master Gunnery Sergeant Stalker to talk about Cyber Com and NSH.
Thanks Ed, thank you for the question. So, we talked earlier about recruiting and how that’s impacting us I can tell you for recruiting purposes we’re getting the talent that we need. To your greater point on retention we’re looking with the services to see what are some alternative options available to keeping end talent. Oftentimes as I talk to the troops that are executing mission, it’s more about the ability to stay on mission vice, a lot of PCSing and other things and so we’re looking at those as options. The uniqueness though of Cyber Command and the National Security Agency is actually rank doesn’t always equate to capability. It’s sometimes you’re more junior enlisted and we spent the day there yesterday the entire DESO and most of the briefers with the subject matter expertise are these E5’s and E6’s who are on mission every single day against our adversaries. So we’re looking across the entire spectrum coming up with different ideas. Whether that’s an opportunity to have initial contracts that are longer, potentially working with industry, academia, all of the above in order to retain our most exquisite talent.
If I could just follow other, any just larger talent management issues that you think need to change in just organizational and that kind of stuff?
Well, I think we need to continue to look at what the American society is providing. I will tell you one of the challenges we have in terms of recruiting is the requisite number of men and women that meet our basic standards that can enter service. And that’s around 25% right now. So, I think more and more there has to be this partnership as I mentioned in the first press conference between our recruiters out there that are doing phenomenal work and getting after talent and those influences in the community. And also, to continue to impress upon these influencers the requisite talent we need and to focus men and women that wanna serve in the military. Now I will offer up to anybody else if you have any comments on the gentleman’s question. Anybody, good? Okay all right thanks. Who else, Christina.
Yes, thank you so much. My question is for Master Sergeant Smith. So, most of the casualties now in Iraq and Afghanistan are Special Operations Forces. The off tempo has slowed down a little bit for the conventional forces but have stayed the same, maybe even gone up for Special Operations Forces. I think Dick Rabin, I think he was the first to talk about the fraying of the Force. I was wondering what is the status of the Force today, how are they handling the off tempo?
So, in 2008 Admiral Olsen appeared before Congress and he talked about what we call pressure on the Force which then in 2011 Admiral McCraven expanded that to preservation of the Force and then it expanded even more to preservation in the Force and families or PDF as many people here will know and we, that has been instrumental in the effectiveness of Special Operations Forces and while I’m new to the command position, 25 years in this command I’m intimately familiar with it, while it is true the majority of casualties have been Special Operations Forces, the majority of the missions and some of the intricate missions or tasks or objectives we’ve been asked to accomplish have unfortunately or fortunately fallen to Special Operations Forces. I will tell you the readiness of the Force right now is at an all time high right now, we’re actually at a 25% reduction on global soft taskings of what we had because we relooked at how we’re aligned and how we’re prosecuting these missions to make sure that readiness stays at its highest level.
Can you expand of that a little bit more?
Sure so on any given day a certain number of soft members are deployed and that number changes, I don’t wanna give you a number and it be a bad number but I will tell you that in the last 24 to 36 months, we have done a very hard look at looking at only those task gates that Special Operations Forces can do. And through that process we’ve slowly brought down our operational tempo to meet the one to two Secretary of Defense guidance deploy to dwell our purse tempo guidance, that has been an instrumental piece as we talk about both casualties, increase in readiness, and making sure we’re able to accomplish whatever mission we are to attempt to task. So the PDF initiatives have helped us with our family and individual readiness in terms of human performance and social performance, soft taskings have aligned us with readiness for the Force going forward and then these missions that we’re able to focus on making sure our readiness is up for those.
Christine, I’m gonna ask the US Forces Afghanistan Senior Enlisted Leader to comment since he lives in that environment.
So, I would say one thing that we’ve changed is we looked at soldier readiness and the wellness of the Forces. How we’re rotating units in and out of Afghanistan so they’re obviously a unit that’s getting ready to go gets increased personnel to max out what their authorization is under their boots on the ground number. But then we have the ability to tailor that to either short net rotation or link to that rotation based on the time of year, based on the enemy contact, and then we can request assistance from some of our partner Forces. And really the operations are partner Force driven so it’s Afghans out front with this office just training, advising, and assisting to the point of need.
Thank you for the Command Sergeant Major of Resolute Support. Can you talk about what new steps are being taken to avoid green on blue attacks?
So, one it’s awareness. And the lesson that I’ve learned over the last 12 months there is you’re really fighting in three domains simultaneously so your military operations are in support of political objectives which we’re working towards a negotiated settlement. But it’s the information space and understanding how both the Afghan Army and our enemy are using that space to combat both US and Coalition Forces. A perfect example is the Raziq assassination last year that was probably the direct result of three different blue on green attacks or green on blue attacks I’m sorry, was because the Taliban was able to spin that narrative that it was a US conspiracy in order to do this and we didn’t catch onto it for about a week and a half. Once we were able to get that to our partner forces to get the local government officials to come out against that and it’s just understanding that how that information environment that’s a fight so it’s learning to compete, but then it’s also informing our forces on what to look for and then providing our guardian angel training to our uplift.
Sir, what was the conspiracy theory the Taliban were promoting?
It was the General Raziq assassination down in Helmand last year.
It was that the United States was behind that?
Yeah it was pretty widely, pretty widely disseminated through different forms of social media.
K Ryan.
Yes, so two questions first to you sir Sergeant Spadaro I think last time here or two times before North Korea had actually fired off a missile or something while we were having the briefing or immediately before. The situation in Korea has changed a lot since some of the major training exercises have been curtailed or changed, can you talk about what if any affect that has had on the Forces in Korea in terms of their readiness?
Yeah that’s a great one. You know what we see an uplift because now the exercises, the unique thing now is the balance between the Republic Korean Forces that are involved with us, we see now that this is better than ever. So even from the times when Command Sergeant Major Troxel is there till now you see this awareness on the peninsula between both the US and ROK Armed Forces that they use the term “katchi kapshida,” we go together, I’ve never seen that more evident within the last year. Three different visits, talking to the 28.5 K that we have there now and there’s this awareness that you could take the term exercise but they’re getting after it. So there’s also ways to do exercising that you see this increase of but more you’re seeing that it’s the Rock led forces that are leading that with the US now in this almost coaching mentoring stage and you’re seeing them take more advantage of these exercises we’re doing so it’s been an incredible uplift over there. And it’s truly now we’re going to see the differences just even for morale, from readiness standpoints, I think it’s the best that I’ve seen it.
So, if I could add on Ryan, so the chairman talks all the time about sets and reps as a way to get proficient at what we’re doing and in terms of partnership like Sergeant Major Spadaro said, the more we can engage with our partners, especially when they look at our non-commissioned officers and petty officers and the level of trust and the level of responsibility that’s given to them, the more that we are engaged with them and showing them how we do business, the more they will in some cases either adopt or they will try to mimic what we’re trying to do because they see how effective it is. And I will tell ya that when I was on the Korean peninsula and whenever I was going to visit either Third ROK Army or First ROK Army and meet with the commanding general, I would take three non-commissioned officers or petty officers with me cause I wanted them to see what we were empowering these individuals to do to get after the deterrence mission at that time. So I think more and more through our partners and allies we have to continue to build on this enlisted focus in education and I’m gonna ask Fleet Addington to talk about the practices they’re doing in the Yukon to assist those NATO countries in getting after this as well.
I just think when you talk across the Yukon AOR, sets and reps, exercising with our partners, developing at our operability, it is vitally important to deterrence and making sure that we don’t ever have the worst day right, that we’re all prepared and we’re ready and that’s vital and it’s important that we continue to train and train with our partners because you don’t really learn each other and you don’t get that until you’ve operated together. And so that’s just vitally important as we work through, work through the various exercises whether it’s the Med, whether it’s in the High North, whether it’s across the European continent, it’s looking at 360 and building a team of partners as we work through.
And just to follow this may not be as much of an issue in Korea or with Yukon but one of the things you talk to US advisors on the ground in places like Afghanistan or in Africa, that NCO Corps is one of the least developed things in one of these militaries we’re trying to kind of build from the ground up. Very hard to create overnight. You have the lieutenants of somebody’s militaries performing duties in a US Force would be typically performed by an NCO, is that a real challenge and if kind of building that culture in a relatively quick, having to be forced to create that relatively quickly?
So, Ryan I’ll make a few comments and Greg I’m gonna ask you to talk about Africa and then Tim I’ll ask you to talk about Afghanistan.
So, the AFCOM senior enlisted leader who’s he’s not here today, he’s got a little event going on Friday called the AFCON Change of Command that he’s gotta be present for as he gets General Townsend his new boss. But since he’s been in position over the past three years, he has taken the enlisted development of African countries from where it was almost non-existent to where in August he is running his AFRICOM Senior Enlisted Leader Conference and now out of those 53 nations that are in Africa, 34 or somewhere around there are sending senior enlisted leaders. Some of those countries like Botswana not only send my counterpart but they send all of their service senior enlisted seniors there too. And then what he’s done in terms of building a part of the AFRICOM strategy enlisted development has been huge in getting after that. Now having said that, these are baby steps okay because there’s a long way to go. And I’m gonna ask Greg Smith to talk cause his guys are out there on any given day partnering with these folks out there so go ahead.
Thanks Sergeant Major. So, one of the great competitive advantages we have in Special Operations is culturally aware small teams, relatively low political capital spent for a higher payoff and we leverage a couple different things. So, one is the assessment of the team on the ground in a relatively short span of time we’re able to give that geographic combatant commander a fair assessment of what the potential capability is of that. We also work by with and through Embassy and our GCC, our geographic combatant command senior enlisted leaders. I can give you an example of I wanna kind of shift this to South America cause I think it’s a really good example where just today I have a Special Operations, a theater Special Operations Command with teams on the ground that we put in in support of SOUTH COM and those teams do an assessment, partner with our host nation partners, and then provide that assessment back up to Sergeant Major Zickefoose to determine how they now see the employment according to their theater campaign plan.
So if you don’t mind sir. So, one of the things we do is develop professional military forces and to do that the NC Corps is a big vital part of that piece. We started our regional conferences about three years ago. When I first did that first regional conference, I had one or two senior enlisted leaders in that whole piece. Over the years we’ve engaged with their chief defenses and now I’m having multiple, this next one I’m doing out in Brazil we have over 31 different senior enlisted leaders involved in NCO development. So, this is grown, it’s huge, it’s part about developing a professional force developing those, securing our nation, and securing their nations.
One small followup on that is just our Joint Special Operations University works with the geographic command. We have an eye on small teams to look at how to do NCO development and then how to do joint development. Integrate and then interoperability are the two key pieces there.
You’ll hear us talk a lot about reliable partners and finding those reliable partners in our ANDSF Forces that are going to perform. And so I’ll tell you that I travel all over the country and every time I go to a US or Coalition base that’s got an Afghan base I take the Afghan Sergeant Major of the Army with me or the Afghan SEAC so that they see we’re a unified front. And the interesting piece is so over the last year and a half if you went out to Commando, the KMTC, the Kabul Military Training Center, or one of the other local bases there in the Kabul base cluster, you will see Afghans training Afghans, it’s very little instruction, they’re on to the next level.
And so just to finish up Ryan, the best way to get after this is I think it’s gotta be top down driven and bottom up driven. So, the chief of defense has to have a senior enlisted person that has served in the military and has been at the ranks at the lowest level that can advise them best on how to do the force. And if you look at this group up here, across the time that we’ve all been in there, we’ve had over 20 countries that have adopted a senior enlisted advisor to the chief of defense. I think you have to have solid first line leaders that can execute the everyday discipline, training, and things like that. So, the ability to develop that professional non-commissioned corps like Sergeant Major Zickefoose mentioned is important as well. So, it’s gotta go this way and meet in the middle to be best effective. Sir go ahead.
Yeah for Command Sergeant Major McFeeney, some discussion the previous panel is about recruitment and retention and the feeling seemed to be that the ability to deploy, wanting to deploy, was a factor in recruiting and retention. Question I’m trying to get to is 18 going on 19 years now in Afghanistan, are there any numbers, any indications you might have that Afghanistan is having a negative effect on recruitment and retention?
No sir, I would actually say it’s quite the opposite and our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines are actually disappointed when we tell them that we have a force cap and we’re not gonna be able to bring them all into theater. We even looked at how we can rotate different organizations in and out from the United States one day to remain relevant and fresh with our new troops but also to make sure that everybody gets the rotation and gets that combat deployment that they’re seeking so badly. Our retention rate in theater right now is about 108%.
Yes ma’am.
I have question to Commander Spadaro, I hope I pronounce your name right. What kind of create in the Indo-Pacific strategy especially when China is getting more and more aggressive in the region and Taiwan faces a direct threat from Beijing?
The first part of the question now?
What kind of road how one can create attack in the Indo-Pacific?
Well I’d like to comment just to even feeding on what Sergeant Major Troxel just said that Taiwan was one of the nations that started the SEAC position based on a visit from Command Sergeant Major Troxel as directed. So they’re moving out to even more and I’d like to talk more about their growth and their explosive growth of how they’re viewing non-commissioned officers specifically now they’re entire enlisted education is done by enlisted. So when you’re looking at when we’re talking here about the success stories that we’re working on like minded partners and allies, there do we see a success story one where they adapt the SEAC position so now they’re saying they value enlisted personnel and now to the turning point where their professional military education is conducted by non-commissioned officers.
Transcom question, I know you thought that you were gonna get out of this. (laughter) So there’s been a few issues with moving for people and losing items, things like that, do you have any update as to how that’s been in this summer considering this is the big moving season and then where things might be going in the future, what sort of policies and procedures you’re working on.
Yeah so it’s a little too early to tell exactly what this summer is looking like because it does take us a while to get good quality data that would be worth sharing but we do track that and have an update every single week on how we’re performing this year. As far as efforts for the future, Transcom is exploring on behalf of the Department of Defense going to a single move manager that will address a couple things, there are three things actually, quality, capacity, and curbside service for our service members and their families, establishing clear responsibility throughout the entire move process, and also establishing clear accountability whereas currently we have Transcom doing several things in the process, the services having responsibilities in executing things differently. We’re trying to wrap all that up and go to one single move manager so Transcom and that single move manager can have that discussion rather than trying to figure out where the problem is to get after that.
Are there concerns within the Force about the single move manager versus having the government do it?
I will frame it this way. Every single question, believe it or not I do get plenty of phone calls and emails on this issue, every single question, every story, every vignette that has been shared with me during my eight months in the seat is being answered by the direction we’re trying to go with that single move manager. Been in for 29 years, have a young family, 14 moves within that so my experiences that I brought in there personally plus all of the feedback that I get in those experiences people have had over a number of years, every single thing that has been brought to my attention is something that we’re trying to get after in this single move manager in this contract. So, I’m confident that we’re going the right way.
Go ahead sir.
Hi Ryan Picarlo Business Insider, I have a question for Chief Master Sergeant Smith. The Special Operations community has been increasingly the focus of high profile scandals and I wanted to get your opinion, I understand you’re new, but I wanted to get your take on whether or not there’s a culture of lawlessness running through the Special Operations community and how is certain cultural failings within that community being addressed?
Absolutely. So, as part of last years NDAA, Congress directed SOCOM to take a good look at itself and do a 90-day assessment. We’re finishing that 90-day assessment right now. When General Clark took command of US Special Operations Command on the 29th of March, his very first Commanders Call, four hours of that focus were on how do we see ourselves as culture, within our soft culture. And is this a byproduct of 18 years or 25 years or 30 years depending on how you look at the models of sustained conflict. And the answer, the answers no but there are some interesting things that have come out of a really good hard look. Every single component within Special Operations Command took a substantial internal look at itself and reported those factors back up. And really it all comes down to a function of leadership, a function of what is the cost of winning, do you win at any cost and is your loyalty to the nation, to the team, to the individual, those types of things. So through our PME, our professional military education both internally and across we re-instituted a really significant hard look at ourselves right now on where we’re at going forward. So, we did both the Commanders Conference, we did two additional conferences at the 100-day mark for General Clark, and then our interactions with Congress following this up but most importantly interaction at the team level right now. Over 2500 pages and 17 hours worth of deep diving internal to take a look at our culture which will then turn into our action plan going forward. So, do we have an issue, no, we have challenges, we have fraying but are these things systemic, no after the hard look. Is there room for improvement, is any one ethical breach too much, yes.
So, if I can add on that right quick I’m gonna ask Sergeant McKenna from NORTHCOM to talk. So, the southwest borders a mission that we have right now and it’s a mission that our forces generally haven’t done in the past. But they’re adapted to it on the ground. Sergeant Major McKenna’s been down to the southwest border several times. So can you talk about the adaption to the environment down there and what Marines and soldiers are doing to get after that mission down there.
Absolutely SEAC. So many of you might know that we’ve been after this from a Title 10 perspective since October of last year. We currently have about 3,047 soldiers and Marines Title 10 Forces on the border. We’re probably at request for assistance from DHS I think it’s nine now. And I would tell you there’s been a lot of concerns from a readiness standpoint and I would offer you that the men and women that are assigned this mission are very enthusiastic and they couldn’t be more passionate about the defense of the homeland. As a matter of fact, I will tell you a story. When I was down there probably about four months ago, I ran across a group of Marines that were performing the mobile surveillance camera mission. And just what you’d expect there’s a group of Marines living in very spartan conditions and as I walked up to this young E6 who’s in charge of about 40 Marines, he had written on a whiteboard something that really caught my attention. And it wasn’t what I really expected to see, you know when I see a group of infantry Marines I expect to see a gear list or things to do list, but what was written on the board was something that was really profound. And what he wrote in big bold letters was “Everyone you meet today is dealing with something you know nothing about… so be kind.” And I mean that just really, almost had to take a knee cause when I asked the staff sergeant, I said hey why did you write that and he said well it’s twofold Sergeant Major. He said one the majority of my Marines are just coming back from Afghanistan and they might be dealing with something and I wanna make sure they know they can talk to not only me but one another. But more importantly I want all the Marines here to know that 99% of the people that are part of these caravans coming to our country are good people and they’re just seeking a better way of life. And I wanna make sure that they have a level of empathy if they do come in contact with these migrants. So that’s the level of character and the level of leadership that these young men and women that are on the border protecting our homeland quite frankly. So, I hope that highlights that or illustrates it for you well enough for you SEAC.
K all right Christina.
Thank you, you just took my question, my border question. So, I’ll move on to Sergeant Major Spadaro, I wanted to ask you about your comments on Taiwan. Over what time period have those changes you spoke about occurred and how does that compare to the Chinese enlisted force?
I can tell you from Taiwan it’s been a process of over two years. Commenting, I don’t know enough about the Chinese forces to recognize at this point. I know we just have to be prepared for them and I do know from everyone at this table here recognizes that readiness. And I don’t see we have that issue with readiness with our forces right now, I see commitment. And now it’s trying to understand whatever inevitability may face us, based off whatever adversarial challenge we have, I think everyone here would agree that we have a ready Force that’s gonna support and defend and do what’s necessary.
Can you comment about readiness as you’ve seen it over the last two years now that the defense budgets have gone up?
Indo PACOM is a benefactor to the largesse of Congress, and we are extremely grateful because it’s allowing for our constant presence in the Indo-Pacific region. So, when you look at just our span of control it’s half of the world. So, readiness is never stopped, and it’s never changed there so whatever we’ve heard in the past, we’ve seen the increase of readiness. It’s everyday, it’s freedom of navigation operations that are on a continuum, it’s either from the air, it’s from the sea, and it’s also to ensure that we’re also doing this for allies and partners, cause our allies and partners watch this. So, they’re also seeing the largesse of Congress. So that’s also a signal to them that we are in it and we’re committed to the region. You know you have to look at that there’s offshoots of the largesse of Congress and that the benefactor is that now we can also deal more effectively with allies and partners.
I’m gonna go back and just chime in on the first question you asked. So when we talk about our non-commissioned officers and petty officers we train them to be transformational leaders meaning we expect them to not only train and prepare their men and women to fight and win whatever their specialty is, but we expect them to provide purpose, motivation, direction, and discipline. And so that they are transformation, they are building the men and women to something. And the reason I say we have the greatest non-commissioned officer and petty officer corps in the world, other countries, like China, it’s more transactional leadership. Do what I tell you to do because I outrank you. Okay you don’t need to know why, just execute. And when you talk about high end conflict and how that could devolve into decentralized kind of fighting, an advantage for us is those enlisted leaders out there that understand commanders intent, they’ve been trained to execute mission command using agile and adaptive thinking of practices and methods to accomplish the mission and to continue to fight and win that’s gonna continue to be our competitive advantage is how we invest in our people and I was gonna ask Sergeant Major Zickefoose if you could comment, you mentioned a little bit earlier, but some of the things you’re doing down there with those countries in South America to build that NCO professionalism.
So, our partner nations, they want NCO development. They can ask China or Russia to do that piece in reality but they ask us to be that force that comes to train ’em. For instance, we were just in Costa Rica, the Costa Rica Defense Force. They asked us to come in and help them train their defense force, their NCO’s at the junior level all the way up to senior level. We do soft NCO’s, we do junior NCO’s, we do senior enlisted NCO’s. So, we’re very ingrained into it. We talk about human rights, talent management, talent management is also general integration. Join this, and then NCO development. All four of those bring together. NCO development is that core that brings it all altogether and makes it happen, makes all those four elements work together.
Kaf Kaled.
Thank you. Follow question for Chief Master Sergeant Gary Smith, sorry about the correct command Sergeant Major.
It happens all the time.
You were asked about the incidents of criminality, the ones that come to my mind all involve SEALS. You have the Metzger homicide, Gallagher, Portier, and now the report about cocaine use in SEAL Team 10 so my question is what is going on with the SEALS?
So we don’t ever comment on ongoing investigations as you know and many of these cases are ongoing right now. I will tell you that while best way to say this probably ours always seem to make headlines right away right? So, which is for good reason, I mean anytime we have ethical breaches those things should be brought up. I will tell you that Naval Special Warfare Command and Admiral Greene and Force Master Chief King out there have done a phenomenal job taking a good look all the way through their formation. And are there challenges or are there areas that we can do better every day we can. We do not have a systemic problem, we have a wide, we have a pretty wide, or pretty large population of Naval Special Warfare but overwhelmingly that vast majority 99.8% are at the top of the line. These ethical breaches affect the entire command and affect the credibility of our entire force, so we take that very, very seriously as we take a good look internally. General Clark and I will be out at Coronado next week as a matter of fact to spend time with our SEAL community and absolutely reinforce the values that we do as a Special Operations Command and its soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines part of this force.
Thank you. One of the sailors, one of the SEALS who pleaded guilty in the Metzger case said that binding people up with duct tape by their hands and ankles is a common disciplinary procedure in the Special Operations community, are you aware of this?
So, I have been in this community for 25 of my 30 years and I have never been exposed, seen, or heard of binding people up as common practice within our community. And that is within this Joint Force, so I’ve been across the Joint Force extensively for 25 years and I’ve never seen nor heard that.
Yeah go ahead.
Did wanna followup on a earlier question for Chief Master Sergeant Smith there. Sorry to just keep…
I just say absolutely.
But looking at the accountability within leadership some of the reports that have come out have been where leaders have one discouraged SEALS from reporting suspected crimes or in the case of the cocaine use as was reported it was lax testing. Are you concerned about the accountability at those higher levels, not necessarily at the lower unit level or squad level?
So, one of General Clark’s primary areas is accountability across the formation, everybody is accountable, especially the leadership, more so than anything the leadership is responsible for establishing the culture. So, we’re taking a good hard look across the formation right now at where accountability lies, when and where we have any ethical or disciplinary breaches, where do we hold those people accountable, and who should be accountable. Who should have known, who did know, and what are we doing about it. So that’s the ongoing part of our assessment right now that we’re doing. I will tell you that we’ve taken a really hard look at this and while we don’t always publish accountability, we’ve been holding significant leadership accountable.
Okay sir whose been held accountable?
So, within our formations a lot of our leaders as far as platoon leaders, section leaders, we’ve held the appropriate accountability right now and I’ll follow up with you on that as far as if we have any specifics on that.
This question kinda gets to a global combatant command like Special Operations Command. Cyber Command, NSA is another command like that. So can you, Scott can you talk about some of the things that you’re doing within your command as you’ve got this dispersed force to make sure that we’re still getting after the discipline and things we need to get after out there.
Absolutely so one of the topics you touched on was fitness actually, and when you think of a cerebral force like Cyber Command you may not necessarily think of fitness as a key attribute. But to be really sharp and to be on target on your computer for eight 12 hours a day, that physical fitness translates into mental fitness. And so, one of the areas that the leadership there at Cyber Command it and NSA and myself had worked on is really the culture, the mindset of a war fighting culture. Because as we know we have a gamut of priorities, the two plus three has been laid out, but there’s also other things that we have to do from a whole government approach and so we have to look at election security, how do we support homeland security, the FBI and so on and so forth. And so, for us it’s all about inculcating a war fighting mindset in a war fighting culture so that we can get after some of the discipline issues and challenges. And to date we haven’t really had any significant disciplinary issues.
I will tell you just to finish off on that one is nothing solves problems better than engaged leadership that is providing that purpose, motivation, and direction, but also is enforcing standards and instilling discipline on the Force. Sometimes we’re doing missions and we’re doing sets and reps over and over and over and it’s easy for complacency to set in on the Force. Leaders have to be cognizant of that, especially non-commissioned and petty officers and they have to make sure that they step in and take action when things are starting to go the wrong way. Okay I think we can do one more question. Yes sir.
Yeah could I ask Sergeant Major Spadaro, talk used to be couple years ago rebalance of forces to the Indo-Pacific supposed to be 60% of the Force in the Indo-Pacific. Where does that stand, is that still the overall plan of are we really having this Pacific pivot or is that been shelved?
Sir we never left. We never left. The United States is a Pacific nation. We’re still at 60% of our operationalized forces, we’re positioned and ready, this is west of the dateline. When you look at the forces we have positioned in Japan, I mean US Indo-PACOM is 377,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines. We have Coast Guardsmen, we have Department of Defense Civilians. We’re spread everywhere from California and CONUS to Alaska to Hawaii. But our ready forces are already positioned in Japan and Korea. We have the 7th Fleet positioned throughout there moving, we have our air forces so we’ve never left. So we don’t ever say that we have to, we’re regaining the advantage, but as far as a pivot or a rebalance it’s never changed.
Okay so ladies and gentlemen thank you so much. This is not only important so that you hear about the troops and the Force and everything, but it’s important for us to have a relationship with you all because you all tell the story of the men and women and how they’re doing in this contested dynamic environment that I spoke of earlier. So the more we have a professional relationship with you all, the better we can tell you the story because we’re the ones out there that are at the boot level seeing what the troops are doing whether it’s at the southwest border or whether it’s in South America, Europe, or whether it’s in somebody’s house looking at their household goods or at Military Scene of Command or Air Mobility Command to say it better okay. But the more we have relationships with you the better we can communicate that to you and the better that it is for us being in front of the media like you so I thank you for this opportunity on behalf of all of these senior enlisted leaders and we look forward to engagements in the future as we move forward. And I can tell you anytime one of these guys are in the building, Mr. Mack we’re gonna run ’em by just to have a chat if they have to so they can update you on what the great men and women of the United States Military and our allies and partners are doing so thank you very much, really appreciate it, and tomorrow morning we’re gonna do a dynamic PT session at 6 am and if you wanna join us come on out. We’re gonna carry rocks, tires, ropes, logs, and we might even pick up a few jeeps out there and carry ’em around. We’re gonna get after this functional fitness here so validating our credentials to lead the men and women and if we aren’t setting that example at this level for fitness and health, then we can’t expect anybody below us to get after it. So, thank you very much and have a great day.