If we do not have the resources to train and equip the force, our soldiers, our young men and women, are the ones who will pay the price, potentially with their lives.

I have come to one conclusion already and that is, in the whole process, it requires your input in a much more meaningful fashion.

Compromise and difficult choices will be required to provide sequestration relief for DOD and for other critical national priorities.

Sequestration is the single greatest barrier to the effectiveness of our Armed Forces--to its Training, Readiness, and Modernization.

Thanks to the members of this committee for your persistent support of our military. We need your continued help to be ready for today's operations . . . and still able to win in 2025.

The cost of losing that trust is incalculable.

Sequestration will cause great harm to the security of our Nation.

That is our second top priority item I think for this committee in the coming session.

I want to thank the witnesses.

it obviously poses a direct threat to literally their lives.

Well, it was interesting that General Dempsey, our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently said that we have a technological advantage in every form of warfare over our potential adversaries except for one, and that is the issue…

So, again, whoever in the Pentagon let that contract did not let the right contract.

And I do not think a lot of Americans know that Armed Forces Network is at every base, every ship, every defense installation of any size, not only in the United States but in all our bases all around the world.

So the Pentagon should have been smarter.

We will not have sufficient force structure to meet the fundamental requirement to simultaneously Defeat an adversary, Deny a second adversary, and Defend the Homeland.

I most strongly urge that we avoid sequestration.

If defense budgets continue to be capped at sequestration levels, we will likely not be able to meet the national defense strategy without an unacceptable level of risk.

Senator McCain and I have spearheaded a bill to provide better mental health care to our veterans, the Clay Hunt bill.