If you cannot clearly articulate when the commitment will be ended, then we tend to move sort of in an ad hoc way.

We have a stewardship to those people, that's quite a bit different than the way we address the career force.

I wrote and introduced my first day in office, that 75 percent of the soldiers in the Army leave the military on or before the end of their first enlistment.

We have, on the one hand, I think, become a much more unilateral guarantor among the NATO countries for security issues.

I'm here to tell you, we have a stewardship toward these people and if we, the civilian leadership, don't articulate this stewardship, in a lot of cases it's not going to happen.

I would ask that be submitted and included in the record as well.

I hope that once you assume your position here, you will resist the notion to get on an airplane and go say 'hi' around the world.

We are at our best, we are at our strongest when we draw from all over the country.

If you shoot the people who do it and blow up their boats, they won't be back.

We all feel very strongly that, as much as possible, our military should represent America, but we also, all of us I think, feel very strongly that should occur with demonstrable standards of fairness.

My strongest objections early on were the interference of the political process into the day-to-day decisions that should have been left to the military.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, Mr. Chairman, I would offer a comment about the preparation that Dr. Westphal has made for this position.