Tammy Duckworth Slams Army Secretary Over Military Parade: ‘You’re Not Doing It To Celebrate The Army’

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During Thursday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) questioned the Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll about the upcoming military parade.

Transcript

00:00Senator Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to associate myself with Senator Blumenthal's

00:06comments about blowing $30 million on a parade. Let's be clear, you're not doing it to celebrate

00:13the Army's birthday. You're doing it to stroke Donald Trump's ego. If you want to celebrate

00:17the Army's birthday by spending $30 million, I would recommend you think about something along

00:21the lines of maybe spending that money on child care for military families, perhaps tuition

00:27reimbursement for military families. There are lots of ways to celebrate the Army's birthday

00:30without blowing it all on a parade. I also want to echo the concerns of my colleagues,

00:35Senator Reid, Shaheen, and Hirono about misusing and burning the readiness of our National Guard

00:41troops and other expensive military assets, like deportation flights for so-called interior

00:47law enforcement operations. The military should not do the job of DHS for it. I'm especially

00:52concerned by your answer to Senator Hirono, Mr. Secretary. I think you copped out with your

00:58answer of, we will do what's legal. It ignores, that answer ignores your obligation to advise

01:04what is right for our warfighters and to focus on warfighting, not to say what is legal.

01:11Secretary Driscoll, General George, I appreciate much of your transformation efforts. I have long

01:17advocated for the Army to make hard, forward-looking decisions. And I especially support the push to

01:22modernize our munitions enterprise to produce and deliver munitions to warfighters at scale.

01:28That's why your proposed cuts to Rock Island are confusing and troubling to me. Rock Island

01:33Arsenal is a critical part of the Army's advanced manufacturing ecosystem. It is central to the

01:38future of battlefield sustainment and logistics. Yet under your current plan, two commands with very

01:43distinct missions, Army Sustainment Command and Joint Munitions Command, would be integrated.

01:48We've been told this consolidation will result in workforce reductions of approximately 100 personnel

01:53and the phasing out of a data center in Army Material Command. Beyond this, details are scarce.

01:59Secretary Driscoll, do you have more recent updates on the workforce impacts of these planned changes,

02:04including how many personnel will be affected and the timeline of implementation?

02:07Senator, I just want to echo how important Rock Island is. I think we have a trip scheduled or hopefully

02:14soon to go up there. The workers up there have been remarkable and have helped our country and our

02:19Army for a long time. As it relates specifically to sustainment and the Joint Munitions Commands,

02:25when we were looking at it, basically the headquarters exist so close together, we thought we could have

02:30efficiencies without actually impacting the outputs by combining. The intent is not to slow down production in

02:37any sort of way. And then specifically, Senator, to your question, no changes from what you referenced.

02:43I know. How many personnel will be affected and what's the timeline of implementation?

02:49I wanted to just kind of reinforce we have, you know, two headquarters that are kind of very almost

02:56co-located and there's a lot of things that we can do within that, I think, to combine that. So what we

03:02still need and what we want to invest in is all the technical expertise that, you know, we get

03:07at Rock Island and, you know, probably the unmatched right now 3D printing capability,

03:12additive manufacturing that even commercial industry is coming in there and using it. So

03:18it's kind of we're looking across the formation of how we can

03:22update our business systems, combine some of these capabilities, and I think it's going to make us

03:26better. And we're happy to come over and brief you that in detail or meet you at Rock Island,

03:31Senator, and have that discussion. Okay, I'd be willing to meet you at Rock Island.

03:35So we just go still with the same question. How many person will be affected and what's the timeline

03:39of implementation? You still haven't answered me. Senator, there's been, we're currently working

03:44on the plan. It is the, I would actually hypothesize there would be growth at Rock Island on a net basis,

03:51but combining those units that are working on the plans right now, we'll provide them the moment

03:54they're available. Okay. I mean, I think what you're doing is scaling down. I hope that the answer is that we're

04:01going to work towards a minimum workload at the very least at Rock Island to maintain that capacity.

04:08I want to flag that I joined the bipartisan Arsenal Workload Sustainment Act with Senators Durbin,

04:12Grassley, Ernst, and Representative Sorensen. This bill would incentivize private industry to partner

04:18with arsenals to ensure more predictable workload throughout the year to enhance efficiency and

04:22keep costs low at all of our arsenals. I hope that you and General George will work with us to move

04:27and get this legislation passed. We'd love to, Senator. Thank you. I'm also deeply concerned

04:32by the Army's plan to divest from the Humvee and JLTV without a clear replacement that meets the full

04:37spectrum of mission requirements. We have been told that the infantry squad vehicle was identified as

04:42the future for ground mobility. But let's be honest, the current model of that vehicle does not support

04:47the needs of medical evacuation. And the Humvee fleet that you plan to retain, which could serve as

04:52ambulances in the meantime, is already facing severe maintenance issues. This ground capability for

04:59medical evacuation is not a gap that we can afford to ignore. What is the Army's plan to bridge this

05:05gap in ground medical evacuation capacity as the Humvee is phased out? Either one of you can take that.

05:10Yeah, I'll take that one, Senator. You know, we have, you brought up the armor protection, we have 18,000

05:16plus JLTVs continuing to buy those. So obviously medical evacuation and how we do that. Having done

05:22that, you know, with all of our vehicles, that's why we're also talking about having armored vehicles

05:28that are inside our formations are going to be critical moving forward. So we need a broad bunch

05:34of capability. We're also looking at autonomous systems and how they can go into certain areas.

05:40We have 105,000 Humvees. And certainly that's part of our, we're going through that process right now,

05:47how we make sure that we're maximizing the vehicles we need. You mentioned medical vehicles. That would

05:52be in that category of how we would make sure that we're maintaining that capability that we need. So

05:57they're going to be in our formation. We just have, we've bought what we need to have inside our formation.

06:03And thank you, Senator. Senator Scott.

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