You think it's important to protect retirees. It's important to protect retirees. We've got a rule here that will protect retirees, documented, to the terms of $17 billion a year.

I have to say, Mr. Acosta, this has really been frustrating. You have dodged every one of my questions.

I just want to make sure you're not going to delay this rule any further.

That's the question I'm trying to ask, about where your values lie, how you see what this retirement rule does, how committed you are to protecting the American investor here, and retirees, so they have a chance to retire with some dignity.

So far, you've said you can't commit to enforcing a rule to protect 2.3 million Americans from exposure to lethal, cancer-causing silica.

I appreciate the point you make about hardware and about training and just how people conceive of the problem.

So for thousands of years, human beings have been fighting wars, and for thousands of years, there has been one constant and that is how much stuff can a person carry.

You cannot do that in Boston.

So this is about resilience and about duplication in effect.

Thank you very much. I recognize we cannot be effective, we cannot be safe if we cannot communicate when we have got people out in the field and the importance of the R&D [Research & Development] on resilience but also the importance of…

I am really interested in the research that is going on now that makes what a soldier does both more effective but also lighter, more manageable, how much stuff they are carrying around.

Is that right? Does the Air Force propose retiring the F-15?