ms. bordallo: mr. chairman, i'd like to welcome our witnesses today and place my statement in the record. >> thank you. mad lean and i work -- madeleine and i work closely as partners and i appreciate the work she does. today we're going to put your statement in the record and they've already been made in the record. as i told all of you before, we want you to tell us the importance of what we have. i'm going to set each of you up with a question, but expound on it with your testimony, anything you want to say. we'll start, general corelli, with you. as you know, we have heard -- we've already had $465 billion in cuts to national defense in the country. some people talk about an additional $600 billion coming. there are discussions that that's going to significantly reduce the force that we have in the united states army. general, you have been serving for a long time. you have served in almost every capacity in the army. when we talk about risk and the risk that these cuts could have, sometimes we tal

ms. bordallo is not here we will dispense with remarks and put them in the record.i will look a procedural matter we use in this committee and that is we discuss prior to the hearing that we would like to dispense the 5 minute rule and the part regular order so members may ask questions during the course of the discussion. this will provide a roundtable type forum and enhance the dialogue on these important issues. we would like to proceed with standard order for members to address witnesses. if any member has a question pertinent to the matter being discussed at the time please wait to be recognized by the chair. we plan to keep questioning to the standard five minutes but i don't want to curtail productive dialogue. i ask unanimous consent for purposes of this hearing we dispense with the five minute rule and proceed as described. without objection it is so ordered. we are delighted to have you here with us today. we have the honor of having general chiarelli with us who is vice chief of the united states army. he has commanded at every level from platoon to corp.