next we'll have general joseph dunford, the assistant commandant of the united states marine corps. welcome, general. >> madam chair, ranking member ayotte, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to represent your marines this morning. i'd like to begin by just making a few key observations regarding our current and future readiness. today of the 197,000 marines on active duty and the 39,000 selected marine corps reserve, 26,000 are forward deployed. 18,000 of those are in afghanistan. our number-one priority is assuring that our forward deployed forces are well-manned, trained, and equipped. and as a result of your support, i can assure you that those marines and sailors that are forward deployed are at the highest state of readiness. but our forward deployed units have personnel and equipment requirements that exceed standard allowances. the additional equipment is due to the nature of the fight in afghanistan and the very distributed nature of operations. the additional personnel required to support staffs and trainers for afghan security forces. we meet these

general philip breedlove, vice chief of staff of the air force, and general joseph dunford, associate commandant of the marine corps. gentlemen, i sincerely appreciate each of you adjusting your schedules at the last minute after we could not hold this hearing on the original date because we were voting. turning to the issue at hand, after more than a decade of combat operations in iraq and afghanistan, reported readiness levels of our armed forces have steadily declined. even as defense spending has grown dramatically. our nondeployed forces have experienced serious readiness shortfalls in terms of personnel, equipment, and training. even our deploying units have struggled with not enough time to train for full-spectrum missions. now we're entering an era of declining budgets, forced structure and new strategies. as a result, our military services face a new set of challenges as they seek to balance the draw-down of forces, vital reset of equipment and personnel, and continuing combat operations in afghanistan. i'm interested in hearing from the witnesses the extent of current readin

next we will have general joseph dunford the assistant commandant of the united states marine corps. >> madam chair ranking member ayotte and members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to represent the marines this morning. i would like to begin by making a few key operations regarding our current and future readiness. today a 197,000 active-duty, 26,000 are deployed in 18,000 of those are in afghanistan. number one priority is assuring our deployed forces are well manned, trained and equipped. as a result of your support i can assure you that those marines and sailors are at the highest state of readiness. are forward-deployed units and personnel and equipment requirements that exceed standard allows us. the additional quickness due to the nature of afghanistan and the distributed nature of operations. the additional personnel required to support staff, trained or afghan security forces. we meet these additional requirements at polling equipment and personnel from units and his messenger mentioned in her opening remarks, units and home station continued to experience

i look forward to answering your questions. >> next, general joseph dunford of the united states marine corps. >> thank you for the opportunity to represent the marines this morning. i would like to make a few key observations regarding our current future readiness. today we have 197,000 active marines on active duty. 26,000 deployed. 18,000 of those in afghanistan. there is no more priority than ensuring our forces are well man, trained, and equipped. with your, support, i can assure you those marines and sailors are at the highest state of readiness. our units and equipment requirements exceed standard allowances. the additional equipment is due to the nature of the fight in afghanistan. the additional personnel support staff and training for afghan security forces. we need these additional requirements might -- meet these additional requirements by pulling from other stations. our units continue to experience significant personnel shortages. and the past several years, two- thirds of our units have been in greater states of readiness. readiness is a particular concern for the nation