Political Quotes

“on Wednesday, my colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley, posed a legitimate question regarding the Marine Corps general officer requirement. As I said at the time, that question deserves a legitimate answer. His question basically was, Why does this year's Defense authorization bill provide an extra 12 general officers for the Marines at a time when the Marines are very much in a downsizing mode? The Marine Corps recognized the need for additional general officers several years ago. They developed a plan which was then validated by an independent civilian study and received scrutiny and approval at the Secretary of the Navy level. The Assistant Secretary of Defense received the study and found the rationale to be legitimate and supportable. First, let me address Senator Grassley's concern for the growth of service headquarters. The Marine Corps' request for additional general officers is not an attempt to increase the size of their service headquarters. For the record, half of those general officers authorized will fill warfighting billets which are currently vacant. Another four will be available for assignment to our warfighting CINCS and two will be used to fill the positions of commanding general at the two Marine Corps recruit depots.”