Martha Roby: “I thank the gentleman. I, too, rise in opposition to this amendment. I will enter into the Record a letter from General…”

“I thank the gentleman. I, too, rise in opposition to this amendment. I will enter into the Record a letter from General Odierno that I received, as well as others. It references the FY15 NDAA, which expressly allows for the transfer of Apaches with no restrictions on additional moves thereafter. And it says: ``If we are restricted from transferring any portion of the 72 Apaches, or must count aircraft inducted into the remanufacture line as part of that 72, we will have to inactivate one or more of the battalions in New York, Kansas, or Hawaii, as well as drastically reduce the work going in the remanufacture plant in 2016.'' Department of the Army, Washington, DC, June 8, 2015. U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC. We are writing to inform you that pending legislation may cause great damage to the readiness of the United States Army, create enormous disruption to the lives of thousands of military family members, harm our industrial base, and require us to send Soldiers into combat who may not be fully trained. Specifically, provisions in both the House and Senate versions of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and the House version of the Defense Appropriations Act will, if enacted, undo last year's compromise legislation that supported the Army's critically important Aviation Restructuring Initiative (ARI).…”