I hear you suggesting he would have a fair amount of discretion as to what kind of body armor and protective equipment he requires of his men and women in the field.

But I know the effect of even an additional pound on your ability to maneuver, to stay fit, to stay healthy. So I commend you for what you're doing.

I think the Russians were at some points of that conflict in the 80s in Afghanistan called 'turtles' by the Mujahedin because they were so burdened by their armor.

General Chiarelli, when will we allow our soldiers to maintain a 1:2 deployment to dwell ratio?

We want to make sure that you and your soldiers have everything that you need to carry out the missions that our country is asking you to fulfill.

I think we can all agree that mobilization and dwell time goals are very important to the overall health of the force--but we are still falling short of meeting those goals.

if the preparedness of our forces has come at the expense of strategic depth for some potential future missions, how does this affect our National Military Strategy (NMS) and our ability to respond to various operation plans and unforeseen…

General Amos and General Chiarelli, have you analyzed the extent of skill degradation given the shift in focus and the time it will take to rebuild and retrain?

I think the American public has a right to know that if something else comes along we're going to have a very difficult time meeting the national security threat that faces the country.

We will need to fully fund reset for years after we are out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

What about the possibility of introduced biofuel crops or establishing an industry that could grow and boost the Afghan economy?

I believe our depots and arsenals are a national treasure and provide with a truly unique capability critical to our national security.

When a marine uses a term like 'emasculate' the situation must be fairly dire.

What are the prospects for getting this done and how long will it take if we can't get it done?

Does this concern either of you? There are some alternative routes we've explored.

So it's something to keep our eye on, but at this point not having a material impact on our operations?

As I recall, in the beginning stages of Korea it also meant that our performance suffered because we were just trying to make the best of a bad situation. We shouldn't consciously put ourselves in that spot.

It puts you in a position of trying to cut and paste and make do, and that's certainly not an optimal situation for us to be in.