marine corps has described this program as, quote, nondevelopmental. which raises question about what nondevelopmental means when you're developing a new system. i'm interested in your insights commander, on what this whole program is involved. also declare the marine corps real amphibious challenge on what general dunford called the amphibious gap -- navy witnesses have testified about the number of ships required to meet amphibious shipping goals. sometimes lost in that discussion is the fact that changes to marine corps ground or ripple through the amphibious ship force requirement. i know that the navy's planned purchase of the lpd-28 amphibious transport is one effort to address the amphibious shipping shortfall. i'm interested to know what else the department of navy is doing to close or mitigate the gap between requirements and capabilities to ensure our amphibious force meets our needs and is capable and ready. the defense department strategic guidance issued in january 2012 followed by the 2014 qdr and this january by new national security str

it's only served in i corp. between 65 and 71, and what the marine corps did is they took a squad of marines, navy corpsmen and a platoon of popular force soldiers, and they put us in a village. and it was our job to secure that village, provide security and defense, work with all friendly units in the area and provide civic action programs and try to -- and train the vietnamese soldiers and also to try to pacify -- that is, to try to win hearts and minds as they said in the village area. we worked close by with the 101st airborne and other units in my area which was -- my village was located between da nang and fubai right along the coastal plain in vietnam. so i spent the next eight months serving there first in one unit, one camp unit in a village and then i was transferred to another village when that cap team were wiped out in an ambush one night. so they had to pull people from different units to form a new cap. so i went to that unit. and so i served in the combined action program from december of '68 unt

[applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> on friday, former florida governor jeb bush traveled to iowa to attend a fundraiser for david young. he talked about campaigning with his father in iowa, his tenure as governor, and other policy issues. this is 25 minutes. >> hello, folks. how are you? come on. [applause] let's sound alive, shall we? i want to thank you very much for coming out tonight. friday night. there are a lot of other things to do. the state best alternate is going on. but you are here, and i appreciate that. we are 20 months away from 2016 elections. you are wondering what i am doing this so early for. you have to raise funds to get the message out. so thank you for being here. i want to recognize a few people. greg gansky is here. thanks for your service. we have some state representatives. thank you for coming tonight. i appreciate it. thank you very much. [applause] and my mom and dad and my sister are here

corps. they are joining terry's forces. now there is going to be a new objective. sherman is going to be headed towards goldsboro. i will be his first destination where he will refit his army before beginning -- continuing the march into virginia. it's up to the 23rd corps commanded by general jacob d. potts to secure goldsboro for sherman. guess who's in his way? general bragg's troops consisting of general robert f. hoax division from the army of northern virginia, and the remnants of the army of tennessee troops, who average north carolina at this point. say what you will about bragg at least he ate timid. -- ain't timid. he launches an attack on forces a few miles east of kinston on march 8 and succeeds in routing a portion of cox's forces, capturing 800 federals and one canon. things look pretty good for the confederates on the first day but then the second day cox brings up reinforcement. the federals dig in. bragg attempts an attack on the tense, but he's repulsed. receiving words tha

we have always known america's success depends on an exceptional navy and marine corps. article one of our constitution authorizes congress to raise an army we needed but direct you to provide and maintain a navy. from the 1st six frigates to our growing fleet of today from tripoli to afghanistan sailors and marines have proven the founders wisdom. american leaders across the political spectrum have understood the vital significance. we are truly america's awaiting deploy in piece as much as in war. securing sea lanes and freedom of commerce boosting our own and the world economy. .. the most damaging and lee's reversible course of action which is why am committed to building ships to the maximum extent possible. fueling vehicles are a vital operational concern. that is why the navy has a history of innovation particularly in energy moving from sale steam oil, sale steam, oil, and pioneering nuclear power. we believe our national security interest must be enhanced by increasing energy diversity and efficiency. our ability to maintain presence in advanced global security

navy and marine corps are key pillars of our national security strategy. yet, by any measure, today's fleet of 275 ships is too small to address these critical security challenges. the navy's poor structure assessment requirement is 306 ships. the bipartisan national defense panel calls for a fleet of 323 to 346 ships. and our commanders say they require 450 ships. but under sequestration, the navy has said the fleet could check to 260 ships, equally troubling. the marine corps continues personnel reduction down from 200-2000 active-duty marines in 2012 to 184,000 today to 182,000 and 2017. with the demands on our sailors and marines rising, these four's reductions, coupled with major readiness shortfalls to to sequestration, are lengthening deployment, cutting training and time at home with families, and putting our all volunteer force under considerable strain. the president's budget request attempts to buy as much readiness as the department can execute for fiscal year 2016. and this is yet another reason why we cannot afford a defense budget at sequest

way or another and we say once a peace corps volunteer always a peace corps volunteer. through this organization we support this important initiative of president and first lady led girls learn. by involving our community peace corps volunteers like charlene and others who are entrepreneurs who are public servants and practitioners and individuals who continue to be involved in a global communities we look forward to this initiative and applied it on bad for the piece of pork -- peace corps committee. >> thank you very much and it's really an honor to be here and to be part of such a huge movement which is girls education and i'm extremely happy and very proud to be a part of all of this. i'm very happy for the president and the first lady to take action and to step up and say it's time to pay attention to this important issue. when i was in library i lived there for three years as a peace corps volunteer and i started along with my counterpart a local schoolteacher, local organizations called bosch bosch. it's a liberian ngo. what we do is our main mission is to help w

when america is called, the navy and marine corps have always answered. in order to ensure that we continue to provide the naval force our nation's leaders and the american people expect, we look forward to answering your questions and to working together with this committee and with congress to maintain our great navy and marine corps. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you. and now to a former staff member of this committee we'll take credit for all sorts of you folks. secretary james. >> thank you very much mr. chairman congress come sanchez. also an honor to sit here with my colleagues from sister services and also a pleasure to be with my wingmen general mark welsh. i've now been in this seat 15 months and i'd lyingike to begin telling you my key take aways of the top things i've learned as being the secretary of the air force, the privilege of my professional lifetime. the first thing i learned which was a shock to me when i first got in the seat is that today's united states air force is the smallest we've had since our inception as a separate servic

peace corps director carrie hessler-radelet joins us now. welcome to you. >> thank you. >> brown: are the biggest barriers here physical or cultural? >> there are many different kinds of barriers. it could be physical. it might be that there is not a school for ten or 15 miles. it may be unsafe for a girl to walk to and fro. it may be cultural. perhaps a girl's education is not valued because the family does not seen an economic return. it could be that girls are greg married too early and once they're married it's not considered proper to attend school or it could be economic. they can't afford school fees or books or uniforms. >> so when you have such a wide range of issues, what specifically do you want to tackle? >> well, one of the reasons we're so excited about president and mrs. obama's commitment to girls' education and specifically the partnership with peace corps is we've learned the best solutions to girls' education are really community based and that's where peace corps volunteers come in. we are looking at the very last mile of

as you know marks recent corp -- marine corps got a clean audit for fy12. they're almost finish wed the fy13 audit. navy has its first statement of budgetary account audit under contract now and moving forward. i believe in particular isess understanding the importance of it and are moving forward. the concern i have very frankly is that there's at least one area that we don't control that could have an impact on whether we get the audit. the defense finance and accounting service that writes our checks, that we pay the navy and marine corps $300 million to last year to write the checks, nine out of their ten internal controls have been found to be inadequate. the numbers that we receive from them that we are dependent on cannot be validated. and so the navy and marine corps are absolutely own track to do it. again, i'm concerned about that which is outside of our control. >> and congressman miller, want it to agree with my colleague on the last point about -- but on behalf of the air force we're fully committed to the audit itch mentioned that my opening s

for seven decades the navy and marine corps have producted this system. that's why our national defense strategy focused onned on the maritime requires investments. for the past few years, the department of the navy has attempted to minimize the impact of an uncertain budget marked by continuing resolution, and the threat of the return of sequestration. this environment has made it much more difficult but even more critical to set priorities and to make some hard choices. the presence of our navy and marine corps unikly delivers on four foundations, people platform, power and partnerships. these are key to the success of our naval services ask they remain my top priorities. people, our sailors and marines are well known for their ability to exercise independent judgment and the flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances. we remain committed to providing our sail,ors and marines with the training and support they need to maintain our presence. and we include in this their dedicated families, our injured and our wounded. we've launched a comprehensive a

he was in the marine corps first battalion fourth marines. his date of death was april 126 19 -- was april 26, 1968. he went missing at age 18. he was survived by his parents two sisters and a brother. he loved to sing and was in a band for some of his teenage yeemples his sister roberta remembers his generosity and talked about how dick bought groceries for a friend in need and how once dick literally gave the shirt off his own back so his friend would have a nice shirt to wear the day he enlisted in the marines. entering the marine corps at age 17 dick was killed in action less than one year later. merlin labor. merlin was born september 5 1947. grew up in siston. served in the army 198th light infantry brigade. at the date of his death, he was -- it was may 14, 1969. he was 21 years old. he was the oldest of nine kids. he had four brothers and four sisters. his father served in world war ii. two of his brothers also served in the military, one in korea and vietnam and the other in the mideast. merlin loved cars and he held the sikeston hig

. >> our marine corps right now is a little less than one to two dwell to deployment. we today have more than 30,000 marines on deployment around the world. and one to two, to use the chairman's term, is on the rag ragged edge of how much you can ask someone to deploy without their effectiveness suffering. on the navy side our deployments are getting longer. they are getting less predictable. and we are trying to get into a thing called the optimized fleet response plan which make deployments more predictable, which will make maintenance more predictable. and which will make training more predictable. all of that will be seriously jeopardized and scuttled by sequestration. >> thank you. mr. wilson. >> thank you. i'd like to thank each of you for being here today. i know firsthand how you commitment your military families, service members veterans, i truly appreciate your service. i cover each of you. thanks to my wife, i give her all the credit. we have three sons in the army national guard. a son in the navy. we have a nephew in the air force. my late brother-in-law a

and bob you went to annapolis then opted to go into the marine corps. to become a journalist after the war. bob was severely wounded and he made a career because it started off in annapolis then baltimore and now washington he wrote some great books. it is terrific. and one last saying we are pleased the book festival has a panel devoted to literature of our war. the non veterans did not have the greatest time when we came home. it has changed for the better thank goodness but i don't think it is ever to late slowed ask all veterans to please stand up and be recognized. [applause] sit down. so we will start putting each panelist because there are 28 million american men in the vietnam war generation. so the way that it happens we each have our own stories so tell me how you got into the navy in we will move on from there. >> okay. can you hear me? i will play a fast one first. has the editor of the war page with that generation ago to book. to do this review column is in the calculable. i mean that. without question with that authority and it is honor t

marine corps has been the primary protector of the international system. we are doing it for everybody else. international prosperity is directly linked to the united states navy. thank you to our military and our navy. we have kept the sea lanes open, you said. we have cap freedom of navigation open for anybody engaged in peaceful and legitimate trade. as the president said, we have been the anchor of global security. this is for you, but also for our friends internationally. those listening to this. we will have to insist on more of a contribution from our international partners. we cannot -- we keep the lanes open for them. our friends in europe our nato friends, our other friends in europe, are depending on exactly what you're are talking about. i would just say, we are going to have to collectively come up with a plan to convince our partners in international security that it is in their interest to make the financial sacrifice to help as a forward all of this protection that we are giving to the world. would you like to, on that? secretary may thisbu

what's the morale in the marine corps like, general? >> senator, it is high. >> yeah. well it should be high. because you are the finest fighting force on earth. and i want to tell the marine and the navy better days are coming to the families. we're going to get our act together in congress. i don't know exactly how yet. but we will. we're not going to leave you hanging. we're not going take modernization off the table so you can't fight the next war effectively. and we're going to somehow solve the problem we've created. so just hang in there. keep your chin up and focused on the mission. general, do you agree weed be smart to leave a residual force behind in afghanistan if conditions require it? >> i do, senator. >> from a navy perspective, admiral, do you believe that the threats we face are growing as i speak? >> i do. absolutely. >> do both of you agree that there are more terrorist organizations with more capability, with more safe havens, with more weapons, with more desire to attack the homeland than any time since 9/11? >> i do. >> i do, senator. >> when it c

so the navy marine corps are absolutely on track but i.m. concern but is outside of our control. >> first call i want to agree with my a colleague on that last point but on behalf of the airforce we are fully committed to the audit and i mentioned in my opening statement i am from the business world so i am tied to this as well i tried to keep my finger on the pulse of how we're doing. we are under way with the budgetary activity that is a precursor to during the audit with a new accounting environment the couple years ago it was messy but it is doing much better now. on balance i am cautiously optimistic with those several caveat so we're on track to meet from september september 2017 to reach the full financial statement of it -- audit. >> thank you to the witnesses for being here today and giving your service to our nation. secretary first of all, thank you you were at the ceremony for the with says colorado. you honored our state as well as the state of colorado and the work force in with your presence there thank you for that. with the

both navy and marine corps are under that goal. we're doing it faster. but the goal is not a quick goal. it's too long. and we need to get better at that. we need to get better at having systems that talk to each other between d.o.d. and the va. but it is something that we're very very conscious of. in trying to eliminate some of the duplication in terms of disability determination that both d.o.d. and the va run. sometimes they do the same things just at different times. >> thank you. thanks, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chair. gentlemen, thank you so much for being here today. i appreciate your service and your willing to testify before this committee. general dunford i would like to start with you sir. the budget we have right now in front of us reflects a switch from land-based to large operation scale battles back to a quick reactionary force for the marines. i know that the marines are going to adapt accordingly, they always do that very well. but i do worry that our forces are going through a lot of uncertainty with financial constraints constr

when america is called, the navy and marine corp have always answered. in order to ensure that we continue to provide the naval force our nation's leaders and the american people expect we look forward to answering your questions and to working together with this committee and with congress to maintain our great navy and marine corp. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. and now to a former staff members of this committee we'll take credit for all sorts of you folks, secretary james. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman, congresswoman sanchez, it is a pleasure to come before you today, to come home where my roots began. and an honor to sit here with my colleagues with my sister services and to be a with my wingman, general mark welsh. i'm still a rookie among the services and i've been in my seat for 15 months and i would like to tell you my key takeaways from the top things i've learned in the top 15 months as being the secretary of the air force the privilege of my professional lifetime. the fir thing i learned which was a shock when i first got in th

press corps, the state department press corps who followed hillary around and mostly respectful ways. she has not seen anything like this since 2007/2008 because this now was an energized active group of reporters wanting to ask questions about something that she had stonele walled on for two weeks, frankly and many people, democrats as well as certainly republicans, but political analysts think it was self-imposed, this injury that this all could have been disclosed and dealt with much sooner. >> in terms of substantive how she dealt with questions today, i tried to run through the assertions of fact that she made and some of the questions that remained. certainly we've already seen today particularly among fellow democrats there's been giving her basically some credit for coming out and talking about it for making herself available for questions for not trying to stay out of this but rather engaging. she's getting credit for that but in terms of the substantive story, what she addressed, what she advanced today on the story, do you think she made progress in terms of satisfying peo

the navy and marine corps have always answered when called. to make sure we continue to provide what the american people expect will afford to answering your questions and working together with this committee and congress to maintain our great navy and marine corps. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. in now to a former staff member of this committee we will take credit for you secretary james. [laughter] >> thank you. it is a pleasure to come before all of you to day to come home where i began. also with my colleagues from sister services it is always a pleasure. mr. chairman i am still the rookie among the service secretaries i have been on the beat 15 months of a bite to begin by telling you my take away of the top things i have learned in my 50 months of being secretary of the air force. first which was the shock to me is that united states air force is the smallest airforce we have never had since our inception as a separate service in the year of 1947 for calligraphy we have been building down the airforce for the better part of two d

whethers the morale in the marine corps like, general? >> senator, it is high. >> yeah. well it should be high. because you are the finest fighting force on earth. and i want to tell the marine and the navy better days are coming to the families. we're going to get our act together in congress. i don't know exactly how yet. but we will. we're not going to leave you hanging. we're not going take modernization off the table so you can't fight the next war effectively. and we're going to somehow solve the problem we've created. so just hang in there. keep your chin up and focused on the mission. general, do you agree weed be smart to leave a residual force behind in afghanistan if conditions require it? >> i do, senator. >> from a navy perspective, admiral, do you believe that the threats we face are growing as i speak? >> i do. absolutely. >> do both of you agree that there are more terrorist organizations with more capability, with more safe havens, with more wp weapons, with more desire to attack the homeland than any time since 911. >> i do. >> i do senator. >> when it

and where was the corp headquarters? is the and does this corp headquarters pay taxed do they invest in the u.s. and economy are they good corp citizens those are questions you should look at when you decide invest thank you. (clapping.) >> thank you very much. >> thank you good afternoon my name is rebecca resign with the municipal executive association thank you for the opportunity to address you first of all, i want to talk about the collective issue i think it is the most important basic concern about their retirement terms of the pensions and health care i want to acknowledge that there's no easy answers to the decisions i share that angst what brings me is any equal angst when i hear and read our consultants analysis that we're in a worse position today, if something like the downturn in 2008, haepdz and we were in 2008, that makes me extremely concerned and so whatever i have something complicated in front of me i try to make the best decision it means gathering information and what the nba believes in and what mo

what does it mean if the marine corp declares i.o.c. in 2015? >> it's a sham. programme has been embarrassing, and they are just at the point to say that we'll take whatever we get. >> do you think the plane is combat ready? >> no, absolutely not. that capability is years away in my book. >> how is it taxpayers bought 150 f35s with more in the pipeline. christy says he's seen the play book before. pentagon officials team up with the defense contractor promising lots of jobs, tempted members of congress vote for the weapons to keep coming. lockheed martin, the manufacturer, has a website boasting about the enormity of plane's economic footstep, claiming it benefits 49 states in puerto rico. >> you don't stop one of these things once it's come this far. >> reporter: literally the plane has left the tarmac. >> yes. >> reporter: a final thought. the pentagon has been massaging the numbers, according to a report, and recent pentagon claims about the plane's improved reliability is not because it is getting better, but not all failures are being counted. in other wor

integral, vital part of our navy and the marine corps. >> thank you mr. secretary. admiral? >> ma'am, this morning there is a great article on what the director for office of personnel management is traying to do for quick highing. we are trying desperately to hire people into the shipyards. it is hard. the sequestration has hurt us and the gourdion knot to get through is incredibly hard. >> and these are incredible people. i've had a chance to meat many of them. >> yes, ma'am. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. chair. admiral greenert i want to associate my comments. it must be -- i'm sure you are very sad that is your last hearing before the committee. but you have had a long and distinguished career. i want to thank you. and your dad must have met my dad. i think they would have some spiritual kinship.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> if -- tomorrow, we will be back for the final day of the civil war seminar starting at 9:00 a.m. eastern time. you can find out more civil war programming every saturday at 6:00 p.m. eastern time on american history tv or anytime on our website. just go to cspan.org/history. thank you for joining us today. >> history bookshelf features popular american history writers and airs on american history tv every weekend at this time. author candace villard examines the history of the assassination of resident garfield. she discusses the politics of the time and looks at the medical treatment in the 11 weeks you survived after suffering a gunshot went. posted by a james garfield national historic site, this event is a little over 50 minutes. >> it is my great pleasure to introduce to you our speaker, an excellent writer formally of national geographic magazine. we are excited to have your hair talk about her second book. w

as you know, he is spree espirit de corps is important. that is something that i am taking into consideration. i am going to just stop my questions, i think i got everything out. if you have questions on the information i have submitted to you you can direct them to me. >> thank you. i actually don't see, my office has not received any letters in a negative way. i have received letters of support. what occurred in 2008 was almost 8 years ago. i do want to look at what you've done and what your record is, what you speak about in terms of issues affecting vets i think your contributions have been great in that regard so i will take that into consideration as we make our decisions here today. >> thank you. >> thank you, we will go to our next applicant and that will be steven nutsell. >> good afternoon, chairman avalos and supervisors tang and cohen. my name is steven nutsell, i am seeking reappointment to this commission. i currently was just recently reelected to my second consecutive term as president of the commission. previous to that i

in the marine corps from 2004 to 2008, i had a pretty diverse speerbs there, i served as a judge advocate representing service members and advising them on a wide range of interests and at the end of my commitment i also served with an infantry battalion in iraq. after we got back home i eased, received an honorable discharge, came back to cooly which was the law firm i was practicing with before i joined the marines. i think if you look at my application you'll see i have a commitment to public service. that's something that was instilled in my by my parents but also schools here in san francisco, i went to public school, high school so when you look at my application you have somebody really committed to doing something for others and you can see that in my leaving private practice first for the marine corps and most recently to serve as a prosecutor with the u.s. attorney's office. another thing that i want to highlight is the mandate of this advisory committee, of the veteran's affairs committee, is pretty broad. i think it's important to have folks on the commission that have a broad

what is morale like in the marine corps? directed is high. >> should be. i want to tell the marines in the navy better-- are coming to the families who would get our act together and not sure exactly how but we will. the lot leave you hanging partake modernization of the table so you cannot fight the next war in somehow we will solve the problem so hang in there and keep your chin up to focus on the mission. to believe the residual force of to leave behind if conditions require? >> i do. >> from enable prospective admiral to believe the threats are growing as they speak? >> i do. >> do believe there is more capabilities with more desire to attack the homeland since the 11? >> i do. >> i do. >> when it comes to iraq in syria led to agree if we take on isil we must win? and i guess senator. >> the first battle of fallujah was too rigid mitt combat teams to the order of 6,000 the second battle was about 14,000. >> to you agree that it would have been difficult for those soon the tribes to take over at the time. >> so we're about to fight a bigger force in tow

i believe wholeheartedly that the white house press corps should have very real skepticism.hite house has earned that over time it should keep that up. there should be and also level of trust. sometimes we make a mistake, just a mistake. someone says the wrong thing did not read the memo and say the wrong thing. >> a couple of twitter questions . i will let you read this one. >> whose idea was it to have michelle obama turn off fivine? i >> very clever. the first lady is very good at social media. she understands the rhythm and nature of it and what work. >> are there any topic or issues that are high on a post presidential addenda but cannot be on the agenda right now go >> i don't think so. i think that the agenda the president will have when he is a moment to think about what comes next will be right at the core of the issues that have driven him into the white house run. i think certainly you would imagine the basket as issues would be at the core of what he is doing. i suspect the work on my brother's keeper, which is the 20 year anniversary will remain important to the

it's fun for the press corp. they won't follow the president. they will be proceeding in front of him captioning his image as he crosses the bridge. and when they get to the other side the members of the press corp will move to their press vans. there may be -- i suspect there will be time for what you call filing reports. >> will be done at the press center or in the vehicle, itself. in the old days, we had to go to a place that had telephone lines. >> take the receiver. >> you don't have to do that any more because the president is going to be visiting a museum. then of course back on the airport. >>> we are witnessing history. >> in other words, is it at that moment, or is it days later, as you pause to reflect on everything that you have seen? >> there are some events. >> the first daughters, sasha and melia to the left of your screen? >> this is a moment. you don't have to think about it. this is historic n my instance i knew it was historic when i was in tokyo george w. bush's father had his moment with stomach flu. there are points at whi

. >> i wasn't a corps member but i was a recruiter for a while, so i saw in two years about 400 people come through. >> i recruited through the environmental center and went directly to the coastal commission so it definitely was an influence on me joining the coast guard. >> in the interest of full disclosure i was on the board of directors for the corps and they still do a lot of work in the district. >> it was instrumental in getting me from a very rough place to even being able to enlift in the coast guard. thank you both. >> okay no other questions from the committee, we can go on to our next applicant and that's ivania bartcuss. welcome. >> good afternoon, supervisors. my name is ivania vargus, i am currently the first transgender woman's president at city college of san francisco. we are the biggest community college on the west coast with that percentage of veterans. i work closely with the city college of san francisco's dean of students, president paris, chancellor tyler and other administrators on behalf of our veteran community. my role is to ensure that all veterans are de