Joe Cunningham: “However, I would tell the Members, Mr. Chairman, that national defense, and I was a professional for 20 years, is at the…”

“However, I would tell the Members, Mr. Chairman, that national defense, and I was a professional for 20 years, is at the lowest I have seen it in 30 years, the worst shape I have seen it in 30 years. We could survive with a low budget and a balanced budget amount that we put in, but what is killing national security are the deployments and the national security policy of the White House, 300 percent OP TEMPO deployments away from home above what we were in the Cold War. That money from Haiti and Somalia and Bosnia and all the other deployments comes out of defense budgets. It is killing us. The effect is, it is driving our military out of the service. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha) will agree. We only have 24 percent retention of our enlisted. That means our experience is going away. We are dealing with 1970s technologies in our F-14s, F-15s, F-16s. There are only four up jets in Oceana today. They normally have 45 for training. Why is this? Because they are cannibalizing off the airplanes we have up and sending them to the front.”