but along with the superintendent and along with the graduating class of cadets, i heard the secretary when he secretary when he very correctly stated i think as he put it, quote, sexual harassment and sexual assault in the military are a profound betrayal of sacred oath and sacred trust. the scourge, he said, must be stamped out. and as i listened to the secretary's words that morning, i thought of the parents of those young cadets. mothers and fathers who had entrusted us with their sons and daughters and the tremendous responsibility that we all hold to be worthy of their sacrifice, to be worthy of their support. and i thought, you know, in those parents' hearts and minds

today, there's probably an unspoken fear that many of them were feeling. it wasn't just date. the unspoken fear that had undoubtedly been growing over the course of the last several weeks and months. i'm not speaking of the fear a parent has understandably when their child may be sent into harm's way. the fact is that everyone in that audience that morning came to the academy at the time when our nation was at war. indeed, they came at a time when they came of age with our nation at war. and it's likely that most if not all of the parents had already come to uneasy terms with the inherent danger of their child's chosen profession. really talking about another

fear. it's a fear that no family member or soldier should ever have to face, the fear of harm coming to the hands of another soldier. the fear that their daughter or son could be sexual assaulted by a comrade in arms. and i thought that warning too -- what could we possibly say to them. what could we impart to ease that fear to let them know that we are committed to doing everything we possibly can to keep their children, who are our warriors, safe from all enemies, foreign and domestic, even when, especially when, that enemy is one of our own. several weeks ago i had a chance to speak to one of the newly appointed brigadier generals attending the senior leader development program. i spoke about this occasion during recent testimony i provided to congress.

and that morning i told those new general officers that no matter what they may do, no matter what they may achieve, no matter what battles they held when or ribbons they may wear, no matter what battles they wage. how far or how fast they rise, if they fail to act. if they fail to intervene, or if they fail to lead on this issue, they will have failed the army. more importantly, perhaps, they would have failed the very soldiers they were expected to nurture, to protect, and to lead. and that's the message we have to take away from this event. because it's a message we have to convey across the entire force, from the newest recruits to the most seasoned leaders. now as all of you know undeniably, this is not the first time we faced the issues that challenges the health and the well being and the readiness of our army. suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, ptsd.

mental health, have all similarly challenged our resolve. some of the issues that you have to deal with, some of the issues certainly that are before us this week are unique to our army and our military. the harrowing stress of combat, the traumatic wounds of war. could be conceived as well as those that we can't. some of the challenges plague us as a society and a nation as a whole. sometimes we lose sight of really how big this army is. there's some 1.1 million soldiers, active duty, guard and reserves. another 330,000 or so civilians. when you take that as a combined population, it's larger than 11 states in this nation. and if the army were a city, we'd be the nation's sixth largest. the many of the problems we face are problems common to a population that is that large.

common to every city and every state in this union. even in the areas of sexual assault, we have statistically had fewer such crimes than occur in other sites population. but i want to be clear. not being as bad as some others simply isn't good enough. not by a long shot. we are an army of citizens. and as an army, we expect, we demand character within our rankles. that's character that we demand, not to say that we're better than the nation and the people that we serve, but rather we strive to lead by our example. and if we are true to our convictions, we have to be honest about our performance.

as i stand here before you today, we have failed. that's not to say we're without hope. that's not to say we made no progress. we probably talked about all of if not most of the progress we made. significant, a 70% decrease and reports of sexual assault. the greater propensity to report. 56% prosecution rate. with the conviction rate of 81%. the army special vick them investigation course is the d.o.d.-wide best practice and the army is training military investigators and prosecutors

from all of the services. these are trends that point to the good work of this army, the good work of many of you right here in this room. and they are statistics that can point us in the right direction that, in fact, say we will continue to push to prevail in erase the scourge from our soldier's life. but there are statistics that tell us as well, there's much more we have do. there's more that most of us in senior leadership must do to advance this cause, to provide all of you and our front line forces the training and the support you need to complete the mission at hand. these are positions of intense personal trust. we have to make sure that they have the right mental and physical tools to carry out the vital missions effectively. these jobs are highly stressful.

we need to provide the means to better ensure their own continued behavioral health and well being. the new system, evaluating the entire sark or the entire b ft va will benefit strongly the victim and advocates alike. we've placed restrictions on who can choose those who certain as a sark or establish va. either the officer ohher civilian equivalent b within the chain of command.

only brigade commanders or equivalent level commander or supervisor may make appointments to the vitally important positions. the hiring authorities may not be delegated. put another way, elevating the authority within the chain of command will produce responsibility, accountability, and oversight. finally, i've also directed that we devise the plan to incentivize successful service as a sark or a staff or da. i mentioned this idea in a recent meeting in the white house held with all of the service chiefs and service secretaries to discuss our overall plans and how to combat sexual assault. afterwards, i was pleased that the president seemed to agree with that concept saying, and i

quote -- we need our top people to understand this is as core to our mission as anything else. the president continued and we got to reward them, not think of this as a sideline for anything else they do, but incentivize am byrnes folks in the ranks to make sure that they understand this is important. my opinion under the current design is there's no reward for soldiers who do this job well, at least not a reward in the traditional sense. no recognition as other fields and occupations in the army for taking the assignments and succeeding. something to help them advance their careers. we have to inventivize their mission. not just the commanders who took their best as important as that

is. but also to ensure that the soldiers who do the job honorably or successfully, to complete the mission expected of them will be duly recognized in important ways as well. important steps. equally important. i don't intend this to be a blanket reflection of the 10,000 soldiers and civilians that we currently have serving in the critical positions. i strongly believe we have many, many committed dedicated and well-trained people currently serving across the army. people who too many recent high-profile cases has shown, we're often measured less by our success than by our failures. we need to do everything we can to make this system better and

make no mistake about it. we are committed to doing that. and i am here to challenge each and every one of you to ask and in fact to require your continued help and your forceful leadership. give you an area where work remains to be done. the past six months using the army audit agency, we've been testing the effectiveness of the sexual assault hotline that had been established throughout the army to provide assistance to victims at a time of their greatest need. some of what we found was good. much of what we found was not.

when triple a first began this test in december, approximately two in every three calls were not answered successfully. voice mails weren't returned, no one answered the phone. the number was disconnected. phone numbers listed on installation websites were wrong. and no words to express the anger i felt or to capture my disappointment. but still, we had a plan. we weren't testing just for the sake of testing. and others to do better. we've been systematically correcting what we found to be broken and what we needed to fix. in may, triple a conducted the most recent survey. in that test, 80% of the calls were answered successfully. more than twice as many than as in december.

is that an improvement? absolutely. is it good enough? absolutely not. not with respect to this challenge. we need to be honest with ourselves. the odds of this army or any of the military services being able to completely eradicate sexual assault and harassment are stacked against ups. but it's a necessary goal and it may be long and hard in coming, but we have to be committed to that path however long, however hard it may be. whatever the odds, however steep the climb, we should be able to -- we must be able to answer calls for help. not just 80% of the time. but 100% of the time. every time an assaulted fellow soldier needs help, we have to be here. we pride ourselves on being service that lives by the commitment to leave no fallen comrade behind. i know you agree.

that commitment cannot -- cannot be distinguished between the battlefield or home station. that's a realistic, necessary goal that shouldn't take years or even months to achieve. we need to ensure that we have accurate numbers and effective assistance. we should expect nothing less. for that, again, we need and expect your help. let me close the same way i began -- with a sincere thank you for all you are already doing. again, stating the obvious, this is an extraordinarily difficult issue requiring hard work and committed leadership. and yes, we've done much. you all have done much. but there is much more to do to ensure that we live every day by the army values that ooch and every one of you, that all of us, have sworn to uphold. now, many have spoken about sexual assault impacts our readiness, degrades our ability to carry out the army's mission. again, you'll agree, they're right.

how can we prepare to fight our nation's enemies when we have yet to protect ourselves from the enemy within? that is where leadership comes in. changing the culture. and ensuring and environment of trust and respect and ensuring the safety of every soldier, man or woman, wherever their duty may call them. 14th century chinese philosopher and strategist wrote, quote, what made soldiers prefer to march ahead rather than retreat is the benevolence of military leadership. he observed when soldiers know their leaders care for them as they care for their own children and the soldiers love their leaders as they do their own child. i know each and every one of you, all of us would do

anything, everything we could to avert testimony sexual assault, the sexual abuse of our own child. we have that same responsibility. we must feel that same dedication to the fathers and mothers who pledged their sons and daughters to the army and defend the nation. we can't let them down. we can't let our country down. and perhaps most of all, we can't let ourselves let the army down. so let me close by again thanking you for your dedication, for being here, and for telling you again, this is one of the most important things, one of the most critical challenges your army faces today. all of us must treat it as such and must go forward.

so thank you for your efforts and the future as well. may god bless you. may god bless this great army who keeps our nation strong. ray woody and also addressed this. his remarks are about 10 minutes. >> good morning, everybody. how are we doing? it is good to see everybody here. i want to welcome everybody. this is a very important conference. we have this once a year and i think it is important for us to have a discussion, and that is what i want to do, have a discussion with the two- and three-star leaders. because of who you are, what you do, we have to set the tone for our civilian leaders as well. this is to make sure we are

doing what is right. so because of many factors, you have heard me say we have a huge issue. and the main thing i want everybody to understand is that this is not just by passing issue. for whatever reason, this is one we have had for a very long time that we have not been able to defeat it. i use that because that is the term we are all familiar with. we have not been successful in solving this problem. and the issue becomes as women take on a greater role in the army, it becomes even more important that we ensure they

have the environment that they can excel in. this is about creating a climate where everyone can excel, an irishman -- i realize that men get sexually assaulted two, and it is about creating an environment where we do not tolerate sexual assault. i will tell you from the things that i see, we still have people out there who tolerate sexual assault and sexual harassment. until we solve that problem, it will get worse, so i bet if i go around everyone in here, you will tell me i got it, no problem. i understand the importance. but lately, we have been out to some units, and although we get it at this level, as i get further and further down, we are still not there yet, as the answer is i do not have a problem here.

there's no problem in my platoon, no problem in my company, no problem in my battalion. that is baloney. that is the problem. we are not seeing ourselves. i am in an all-male unit. i do not have a problem. that is not right. you probably have some perpetrators, probably have some predators, and you probably have some males who have probably been sexual assaulted or sexually harassed. this is not about i do not have a problem because i do not have females in my unit. this is about getting down to sergeants, staff sergeant, master sergeants, lieutenants, captains, majors, lieutenant colonel's, where they take this on seriously, because we are not doing that today. the way i want us to do it. we are talking earlier, we were

talking about we have an ied, every soldier knows what to do, they have a battle drill, they know how to react to it and then once we started figuring out it, we started getting these, we started going to the --and we did all this analysis to figure out how to stop it from exploding,, to maim our soldiers. guess what -- sexual assault is maiming our soldiers. we have the same thought. every soldier needs to understand what their role is, what is their battle drill to prevent this. what do they do to the left of the incident? what do they do when the incident occurs, and what do you do after the incident occurs?

we can deal with that. we have to understand better what it is here, and we have to do the same type of thing. i want to go over the five imperatives that i put out, make sure everybody understands this. the first is protect victims and prevent offenders come a provide care, provide rights, and privacy of survivors. that is number one. number two, professionally investigate and take appropriate action. number three, create an appropriate positive command climate where trust and respect are the cornerstones of what that command climate is about, that all our soldiers trust, that actions will be taken

appropriately by the chain of command, that we have an attitude of respect for each other to wear this uniform. that is who we are. or supposed to be. her spec each other. we need trust. i talk about this all the time. it is critical that everything we do. the things we are asked to do require trust, the ultimate trust, the trust that you can leave in anybody who wears this uniform. you got to be there to save each other's lives under very chaotic conditions, but if we cannot solve this problem, would you trust this uniform? if you think you can be

retaliated on if you make a complaint? you do not think the chain of command will react properly to say it is he said, she said, server get it? it is not trust. that is not trust. that is what we got to work on. fourth, we have to hold individuals among units and commanders and leaders accountable. and the fifth imperative is the chain of command fully engaged, responsible for everything in their unit and accountable for what goes on inside that unit. and there's one thing i think we all have to think about is how do we see ourselves? what are the systems we have in place that allows us and when i say see ourselves, see our formation, whatever it might be, how do we see ourselves?

there is lots of ways to do it. command crime and surveys -- climate surveys. that is one way. sensing sessions. talking to people, walking around, you have to figure out the best way for you, but you better have a system in place to see yourself. it is just not about sexual assault. it is about everything, but i am focused on sexual assault and harassment right now. how to you see yourselves? as i look back, when i was a battalion commander, i bet you i probably did not see myself. you got to make sure you see your self.

you cannot just base it on statistics, or what you're getting from the chain of command all the time. he got to go outside. when i was the commander in the iraq, i believed in the chain of command, but i also went out and saw for my own eyes everyday, every day i went out to go see what was going on, get feedback from the chain of command, but make my own assessment, talking to everybody i could so i could make the right decision. this is no different. this is no different. so i asked everyone to make sure you have a system to do that. this is ultimately about leadership, no different than any other problem. it requires leadership. it requires setting the tone. we set the tone. you know that. when a commander or a director or the leader of an organization

ation reflects them. and if you are doing the right thing, they will do the right thing. if you hold people accountable, or make dean sure how -- or make it sure they know how important is, they will get it. if you don't, they won't. they will realize it is not important to you. i will be here the whole two days of this conference because this is important to me. this is important to me. i want to make sure everybody understands that, and as i go around about we will have discussions with this, because it is important to me. it is my number one priority right now, and i am not kidding. i am not kidding. this is about the health and

welfare of our sons and daughters from of the sons and daughters of america's citizens. how many people have sons and daughters serving right now? you should understand that. you should understand that. you want an organization that will take care of your son and daughter when we turn them over to that organization or command. that is up to us to make sure we do that. it is up to us to make sure we do that. i want them to be proud of

sending their sons and daughters in the army. that is what it should be. it is a great opportunity. the on know what the army gives to people, it gives all people, races, colors, financial backgrounds, the opportunity. it is up to us to make sure they understand that. and that we sustain that. that we do not get after this where we start having problems. i asked everybody to understand that. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> speakers included direct heirs of the army and international guard and the vice chief of the national guard bureau. the head of the bureau will provide opening remarks. join us monday live at 9:00 a.m. eastern. >> the c-span video library has reached a milestone. 200 hours of programs.

it is searchable and free. this is america's cable's company. in >> next, the hearing for the president obama's to run the bureau of alcohol. he is currently the act and direct to of the agency. he joined atf in 2011. the senate judiciary committee is 2.5 hours. call this hearing to order. think you for coming today. today we are considering to fornees to be the assistant the civil division. and to be the director of the bureau.

.irst i will start he is currently the act teen attorney general for the civil division. from the university of virginia. after graduating from el went to the 11 circuit court of it feels. mr. dellry went on to private practice at wilmer, cutler & and pickering known as wilmer-hail where he was a litigator for 14 years. if contract and corporate administration and administrative law matters. in 2009, he held a number of leadership roles including the chief of staff and counselor to the death of the attorney and

general, the associate desk of the attorney general. in these positions he advised the department's leadership on a and range of matters including civil litigation, appeals, national security litigation, and policy. yousecurity litigation, and policy. are as acting assistant attorney in an and in general for the civil division, he supervises approximately 1,000 attorneys representing the you united states, the president, and cabinet officers and you agencies. he supervises much of the government's civil litigation and which includes the defense of legal challenges to congressional statutes, administrative policies, and actions.aactions. at the justice department, he andat the justice department, he devoted significant attention to the civil division's extensive docket of national security cases.you he worked closely with the are office of the solicitor general you to which he makes recommendations concerning you supreme court cases.are you he also has a strong track record of pro bono service.you record of pro bono service. will and will you and for example, from 2007 to 2008, he supervised a team of lawyers in a and is in

that conducted an investigation a you on behalf of the district of are you columbia's office of tax and revenue in the effective of $48 million by a long time employee. a the employee pled guilty to you are a charges in 2008.you the judiciary committee has a you received support from a a you received support from a a bipartisan group of current and you former government officials and a a a a a a a group of assistant attorney aa group of assistant attorney a generals for the civil division in the administrations of presidents reagan, george h.w. a you bush, clinton, and george w. you and bush. now turn to todd jones whom i've a known for a very long time. we've worked closely together you for members of the minnesota law are afor members of the minnesota law enforcement community when he you a you was in the first stint of the u.s. attorney of mrn minnesota when bill clinton was president awhen bill clinton was president and i was the county attorney. for the past two years, todd you joan has been doing the a you impossible.are in a you and you you andou and you and

you and you filling two crucial federal law commissions as acting director of the atf and the u.s. attorney a a for the state of minnesota.afor the state of minnesota. i know son anthony is back you there.andthere. i know it's not been easy.a todd has wife margaret and also a father to not just anthony but and in four other children and a good one at that. we welcome anthony here today a a a representing the family. todd jones has an impressive youtodd jones has an impressive and pack ground that has him well prepared to lead the atf.a after law school at the youafter law school at the university of minnesota, he and you entered the u.s. marine corps where he served on active duty you as the judge advocate and are as a infantry officer from 1983 to you are in and you and i 1989.you two years later, he was called he you back to active duty in the first you are iraq war.you are you in addition to the military and career and having a rare you career and having a rare distinction of serving as a u.s. a attorney under two different a a a you and him