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| For
Immediate Release: March 31, 2004 |
Contact: |
Harald Stavenas |
OPENING STATEMENT OF
CHAIRMAN MCHUGH
Total Force Subcommittee Hearing on
Stress on the Reserve Components.
There's a photograph circulating on the Internet of an Army truck convoy in Iraq that as much as anything I have seen captures what this hearing is all about. It underscores why it is necessary that we focus today on the reserve component elements of the Total Force. The photo summarizes exquisitely the new era and new realities that the men and women of the reserve components today are dealing with. And it should serve as a wake up call for all here who make the policies and laws regarding the Total Force that there are new realities that we, too, must deal with.
What you can see in the photo is a sunlit cargo truck with a driver and vehicle commander sitting in the shadows behind the windshield. It's just two reserve component soldiers doing their jobs in a place they probably never thought they would ever be. We might never have known their thoughts about that job or their changed circumstances except for the modest cardboard banner pasted to the windshield of their truck. The message from them on the crudely lettered sign in soldier-direct words reads: "One weekend a month MY ASS!
Indeed, somewhere between 1990, with the start of Desert Storm/Desert Shield, and today, America's contract with its reserve components underwent a major modification. Certainly for the last decade the nation has been asking far more than one weekend a month from its reserve components and those men and women have answered the call magnificently.
We are at war. Some would say that such circumstances are exactly why we have a reserve component and it is the circumstance that most reservists should have expected to face when they volunteered.
But the new reality is that this war demands more from the reserve components than previous conflicts. Take just one metric: During Desert Shield/Desert Storm mobilization tours averaged 156 days; during Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, about 200 days; and during Noble Eagle/Enduring Freedom/Iraqi Freedom 319 days. Moreover, during Desert Storm reserve components were called, went to war, and then came home. Today, in the near term, 100,000 to 150,000 reserve component personnel will be mobilized annually for extended periods to sustain troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan. The longer term planning metric is that each reserve component member can expect to be mobilized at least once every five years, if not more frequently, for periods of up to a year or longer. That's a far cry from one weekend a month.
These are fundamental changes and we must pay attention to their implications. Today's hearing is part of the effort by this subcommittee to better understand not only the stress being experienced by the reserve components, but also to examine what is being done and what should be done, to sustain the viability of the reserve components.
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Washington, D.C. 20515
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