SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS AND MANAGEMENT SUPPORT

JOINT HEARING WITH PERSONNEL SUBCOMMITTEE

STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN DANIEL K. AKAKA:

Thank you, Chairman Nelson for agreeing to hold this joint personnel and readiness hearing today.  I am very pleased that Senator Ensign, the Ranking Member, and the other members of the Readiness subcommittee, are joining today with Senator Graham, the Ranking Member, and our colleagues on the Personnel subcommittee to hold this hearing on programs that support our military families, in order to illustrate how important family readiness is to the readiness of our military forces, and what we can do to improve family readiness. 

We have a large military population, from all four services, living in Hawaii. They are valued members of our community.  I know that it is not only our men and women in uniform but also their families who serve our nation and who bear the brunt of the heavy demands placed on our military.  Just as we are responsible for the well-being of our service members, likewise we have a responsibility to their families. 

As Chairman of the Readiness subcommittee, I asked that we hold this hearing today because I am convinced that how well we care for the families of our service members directly affects the quality of our military.  I believe our military leaders understand this as well.  Two days ago, the Army announced a series of belt-tightening measures to deal with the unexpected costs of the President's so-called "plus-up" of forces to Iraq.  The Army specifically exempted family support programs from any reductions.

I also know that our Personnel subcommittee has the most expertise on the programs that affect our families, so I am very pleased that we could work out this joint hearing with them, and I want to thank Senator Ben Nelson and Senator Graham for agreeing to hold this hearing with us.

I want to welcome the witnesses for all of our panels this afternoon, especially those of you that traveled to be with us today.  We have three panels and many witnesses today, so I will not take up valuable time by mentioning everyone individually, but I want you all to know, especially our witnesses on the final panel, how much we appreciate both your being with us here today, and how much you do for your country. 

I look forward to hearing from our colleague, Senator Chambliss, our witnesses from the Department of Defense, and the spouses on our third panel.  We have a wide range of issues to discuss today, from child care and schools to counseling services to housing, and I could list many more.  I hope that our witnesses today will be able to speak to two topics of particular interest to me.  

First, the unique financial stresses that military families, active duty personnel, National Guard, and Reserves, may face, in particular due to deployments, and whether financial planning services are widely available to these military families to meet those challenges. 

Second, I think we need to discuss not only what is the Department of Defense doing for military families, but what role does the local community play in supporting military families, both in the active duty as well as the National Guard and Reserves, what role should it play, and how much community involvement do military families want?  I will be especially interested in hearing from our final panel on this.  Do our military families want as much interaction with, and assistance from, the civilian community as possible, or do they prefer to take care of their own?

I look forward to discussing this with our witnesses during the course of this hearing.  Thank you.

More infomation on the hearing, including witnesses' statements, can be found on the committee website:

http://armed-services.senate.gov/e_witnesslist.cfm?id=2711

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