>> yeah, i wanted to comment on operatability within the california national guard. they worked really well within the framework that we established with cal fire and then beyond that throughout the national guard and the army, all of our aviators train to the same standards so really we're able to integrate any aircrew from any state, any component, into our program at any time because we're operating you noah cording you know, according to the same standards. back in 2008 we had a very large fire event here in california and we aircraft from 22 states responding to that. there is capability to respond within the national guard alone and we have started developing relationships with our title 10 partners, we do similar academics every year like they do so i think that helps generate interoperatability amongst the title 10 and title 32 assets within the state as well. >> well, i don't know about you all but i feel pretty comfortable going into this fire season. it sounds like we have a pretty integrated group not only within the military capability you but state and

maybe we can talk about how is the national guard and dod resources and capabilities integrated into the command and control at the fire and also the supporting ops centers whether it be the gac or other centers down there. maybe our military personnel can talk about that, or ray. >> it's important to note that we are the supporting effort to cal fire and we get called in when they are basically out of assets. we are working for cal fire, they are the incident commanders, we follow their coordination, typically we're the last ones in and the first ones out. we do have an on-going relationship with cal fire, i'm in contact with cal fire all the time. we have good situational awareness what's going on in the state of california. they normally put us in an alert stat us so we're prepared to respond in an attack mode. i don't often work with chief chaney in southern california, about a month ago we had 9 aircraft at our peak working fires throughout northern california if that answers your question. >> any other responses? >> i wanted to touch -- can you hear me now? i wanted to touch on

>> yeah, i wanted to comment on operatability within the california national guard. they worked really well within the framework that we established with cal fire and then beyond that throughout the national guard and the army, all of our aviators train to the same standards so really we're able to integrate any aircrew from any state, any component, into our program at any time because we're operating you noah cording you know, according to the same standards. back in 2008 we had a very large fire event here in california and we aircraft from 22 states responding to that. there is capabili

. >> she believes the national guard failed to properly investigate her sexual assault. >> is this exposing the dysfunction inside the guard? >> yes. >> brown says following the incident she returned to duty where she says she experienced sexual. >>ment and inappropriate touching and it continues for years. >> over and over again. >> why did you get involved here? >> i'm a commander. >> frustrated with the response, lieutenant colonel sent a series of memos. >> do you have any reason to doubt her? >> no. >> no reported action has been taken against another memo commanded that i was the first. >> immediately she would call the air force office of the special investigation and conduct an veg. >> for getting involved were you retaliated against? >> absolutely. >> how many of you believe you have been retaliated against for trying to do the right thing? >> i have. >> absolutely. >> several times. >> all 9 of you? >> absolutely. >> is that part of the culture of the national guard? >> what is the current reputation of the california national guard? >> it's not a good reputation. it's not. >> chi

and to have over 2000 national guard personnel deployed. so what about that capacity? and then to have those different nations and then those observations to enforce the treaty between israel and in afghanistan and in kuwait and iraq to send a helicopter company very shortly and in a year and a half with those apaches and every year we continue. we have one in every region of the world supporting america. >> chief, you talk about your duties in aviation support. and to clear vegetation what else are they involved in? >> we want to make sure the stories are not accurate. >> repairing infrastructure with those improvements that are down there. so they are doing different support roles working in dispatch centers where we have the greatest personnel. >> what about those assigned to you are accurately involved ? >> the vast majority had a have a percentage at the top of my head but those two areas right now that consumed the largest rd aviation piece and the surveillance. >> and to have no contact with any of the families. >> and very quickly with my last minute that i have

my expect would be through the national guard bureau but we'd have to check that. >> they national guard indicated they feel since they're in close proximity to them that they'd like to pursue providing that counsel -- >> it would be my expectation in the normal course of events it would be the california national guard that would counsel california national guard soldiers but we'll have to check that for you. >> all right. when the general was kind of running through those that were prosecuted and pending cases, most of them from the u.s. attorney, when he referenced the court martials, seven of them, six officers, one enlisted, i guess, he made the statement that both because of lack of evidence and just the ucmj itself prevented them from pursuing court-martials of those individuals. what would have to be changed in the ucmj in order to allow the military justice system to work? >> the military justice system has the same presumption of innocence that the civilian justice system does. so we have the same issues of proof that we have in the civilian justice system and often there are c

they got to see the national guard's capabilities down there, the coast guard's capabilities. they got experience of what the marine corps has to offer. it was the smorgasbord of mill capability. as we contemplate the idea of medical surge and how do we deal with a thousand people in a hospital parking lot, we have to be creative. the only way we can do that is we have to know what are the options out there, what are the game pieces, what's the apps in the apps store? what can we ask for? by understanding some of these capabilities and looking beyond the obvious i think we're going to be able to develop some really cool medical surge plans and capitalize on the partnership between dod and the civilian world and i don't want to discount the other partners because this happens, this comes up every year and i have to say that it comes up every time we get lectured about there's the state, the state has resources, the feds, the other federal partners, they have resources, absolutely. when i say dod, please don't take it the wrong way, i'm encapsulating the entire family. when we t

we're here today to hear from the california national guard, the national guard bureau and the office of the secretary of defense on an issue we must get right in fairness to not only the california guardsmen this affected but for all service members going forward. compensation, whether it say bonus for a service agreement or regular pay is an obligation to our service members and their families that they should not have to worry about. i find it unacceptable we'd place the additional burden of years of concern about the legitimacy of a bonus payment or student loan repayment on those who volunteer to serve. the armed services committee has taken action in the 2017 national defense authorization act to address this issue and the subcommittee is taking every opportunity to thoroughly review and discuss the way forward so that we can prevent such a widespread problem or abuse in the future. our purpose today is to gain an understanding from those involved on why this happened and what we can do to prevent it going forward. before i introduce our panel, let me offer the congresswoman dav

to that in the second and were looking at about 700-800 troops to automate the already 2000 national guard's that are at the border. those are dispatched earlier this year secretary mattis authorize their department to the border to help customs and border patrol agents. >> host: where are these new troops going? along theanywhere texas mexico border, extend all the way to california. so the several different major checkpoints where to look for traffic but basically they're going to be backfilling picky will not have active-duty troops armed on the board looking for people crossing the river or whatnot. you are going have been in administrative positions, half in providing aviation support that might be some helicopters or surveillance. you will have them potential in motor pools assisting with getting the different vehicles that are get pretty beat up writing along the border all day long. >> host: wises important these are active-duty troops? >> guest: there's an 1878 law that forbids federalize troops from acting in a law enforcement function in a state. so the reason that national guard

they installed them in their aircraft so we have robust communications with california national guard, with navy and marine corps it's still a work in progress. we have a work around with that with respect to tactical communications and we use coordinating helicopters to handle air to ground tactical situations and that is relayed to the aircraft that are in trail. it's not perfect but it's a work around and it keeps everybody in the fight. >> prior to 20011 2011 the navy fire fighting capability was concentrated in one squadron. in 2011 it began to expand to other helicopter squadrons. one consequence of that would be multiple squadrons providing aircraft to cal fire to support the fire fighting effort and one somewhat simple but very effective solution was the use of defense connect on line, the dco chat room. basically cal fire personnel, along with all the individual squadrons, all connected realtime able to communicate and coordinate both from the squadron and also on scene. >> well, thank you. let's go ahead and move into relationships. we had a significant discussion yesterday