To watch Senator Capito’s questioning, click here or the image above.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, today questioned U.S. Army Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, Chief of the National Guard Bureau; U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Jody J. Daniels, Chief of the U.S. Army Reserve; Vice Adm. John B. Mustin, Chief of the U.S. Navy Reserve; U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. David G. Bellon, Commander of U.S. Marine Forces Reserve; and U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. John P. Healy, Chief of the U.S. Air Force Reserve on the National Guard and Reserve’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2024.

During the hearing, Senator Capito discussed the importance of National Guard Special Forces units based out of West Virginia. Additionally, Senator Capito asked about GPS technology resiliency, as well as cybersecurity capabilities across the different branches.

HIGHLIGHTS:

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF NATIONAL GUARD SPECIAL FORCES UNITS IN WEST VIRGINIA:

SEN. CAPITO: “West Virginia is the home to some of the National Guard Special Forces capabilities, including the Special Operations Detachment Europe and the 2nd Battalion 19th Special Forces Group? Can you speak to the importance of the Guard's Special Forces capabilities and what they contribute to the Joint Force?”

ARMY GEN. HOKANSON: “Yes, Senator. It's an incredible capability. When you look at the two Special Forces groups that are not on the active component, they're both in the Army National Guard. And if you go back, really, to the early days of 9/11, it was Guard Special Forces folks that were there, and they have served admirably around the globe ever since that time. For us, it's something we work very closely with Special Operations Command to make sure that we make the ability for those leaving active duty to come into the National Guard, and then also to recruit those directly out of the National Guard into our formations. It's a critical skill set that we utilize each and every day. And our combatant commanders can never get enough of them. So we're doing everything we can to recruit and retain and provide those bonuses and incentives to keep them in our formations.”

SEN. CAPITO: “So you have a transition pipeline from active to- for the Special Forces talents, is that what you're, saying?”

ARMY GEN. HOKANSON: “Absolutely ma’am.”

ON NEW “NITRO” GPS TECHNOLOGY TESTING IN WEST VIRGINIA:

SEN. CAPITO: “Accurate positioning, navigation and timing, and GPS services are essential to U.S. critical infrastructure and for military operations. So our state is one of the states, West Virginia, to participate as a test site for the National Guard's National Integration of Time Resiliency for Operations, or called NITRO. Could you tell me a little bit about NITRO and where you see that's going and how important that is?”

ARMY GEN. HOKANSON: “Yes, ma'am. It’s a very important capability because it provides alternate resilient timing for GPS and many of our systems operate on that. Currently, we have six states that have fielded it and we're working very closely to support the states because this provides that capability to the states and local first responders in the case there's a loss of the GPS terrestrial signal.”

SEN. CAPITO: “Does this capability go through all different forces? I mean, would this be something that every Guard and Reserve would have a great deal of interest in?”

GEN. HOKANSON: “We're not sure of the exact fielding plan, ma’am. It’s based on the funding that's provided, but we do have it in six states right now and 21 others have expressed an interest. So we're looking at the long term viability of this or if there are other alternate capabilities to provide the same.”

ON CYBERSECURITY RESILIENCY ACROSS THE MILITARY BRANCHES:

SEN. CAPITO: “Let me ask you a question on cybersecurity. I know I'm assuming that all of you have certain cybersecurity components. Is it growing? How important is it to you? And is there a coordinating aspect of this across the forces?”

MARINE CORPS LT. GEN. BELLON: “I think you’re acknowledging we're in the information age, it's only going to get more important. It's vital to everything we do.”

ARMY LT. GEN. DANIELS: “So the Army Reserve is looking to expand the amount of our force that is cyber warriors. We're growing out of cyber protection brigade, adding In additional capabilities, and I meet once a quarter with the Army Cyber lead along with the Army National Guard director and we coordinate activities to make sure that we're not hitting the training pipeline too heavy too fast. We're trying to make sure that we're all in sync as we go forward, looking to 2030.”

NAVY VICE ADM. MUSTIN: “So cyber is a growth area for the Navy and Navy Reserve. So we currently have about 8000 sailors within our information warfare community, and we continue to work very closely with CYBERCOM as well as our fleet cyber which is 10th fleet to ensure that the creation of our cyber protection teams and offensive cyber capability continues to mature.”

AIR FORCE LT. GEN. HEALY: “Yes ma’am, the absolutely growth industry within the Air Force Reserve currently getting into mission assurance, increasing defensive and offensive cyber operations, and absolutely looking always towards leveraging our civilian experience and taking that to benefit the reserve as well.”

ARMY GEN. HOKANSON: “We have 4000 cyber professionals in the Guard. We're part of the Cyber National Mission Force and fully integrated to CYBERCOM. The one thing I would highlight though, is we have state partnerships with 100 nations. One of their greatest requests is to help them with the cyber defense and network defense in their country. And we're finding when we look at misinformation campaigns, that this is absolutely critical to helping our partners and allies and that's something we leverage at every opportunity.”

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