And today is the anniversary of the collision involving USS Fitzgerald and the loss of seven sailors.

The debate has always been should it be built to a military standard, should it be built to a commercial ship standard?

Those seven cruisers alone have more missile capacity than the entire British fleet.

I do not lay any of this blame at the feet of our witnesses today or by the stellar leadership of our subcommittee chairman or by any member of this committee.

The SWO community is screaming for change.

the best case scenario--best case, if everything goes according to plan--probably 15 years.

it shouldn't be retiring old ships, it should be maintaining the ones that we have got in order to have that availability.

It is time to stop fiddling. We need to be visionary and to allow the industrial base to rightsize to deliver efficiently for our national security needs.

not only will we be I think damaging the workforce as Mr. Golden pointed out, but also we will be suffering a penalty, a monetary penalty, where those dollars could be used, I think, in a much, much better way rather than paying a penalty.

I think that is incredibly important. I think there are a whole litany of issues that need to be addressed--career path, retention, very specifically female SWO officer retention.

Sailors are not receiving adequate sleep. Sailors' fatigue poses a considerable risk to the safe and effective operation of Navy ships.

In this case, President Biden is fiddling while the Navy is metaphorically burning.

I think it is unfortunate and regrettable that we won't get a Future Years Defense Plan.

I give it a D-minus. With proposing eight battle force ships, of which two are tugboats, we are going backwards, not forwards.

Frankly, this is a waste of time and not only is unacceptable, but is dangerous and imperils our national security.

As Yogi Berra once said, when you get to the fork in the road, take it.

Thank you again for all the work that you're doing with Force Design 2030 for the Marine Corps.

In order to get where you need to be with Force Design 2030, you would not only need the resources that you get from retiring older systems but also some additional resources to make sure we're on track so we don't take that unacceptable…

A bad contract leads to perverse incentives. And unfortunately, I think that we are working with a bad contract with the KC-46A tanker.

Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your perspective and your leadership there. There are a lot of challenges in this NDAA coming up that this subcommittee will address, and I am confident with your leadership that we will do that…

Tactical lift is critically important. Maintaining the skill level and the experience with those aircrews and those pilots is key.

I think that there are a number of challenges out there with KC-46A, as well as how we are going to operationalize in a continued way the C-130s and making sure we are cognizant of the incredible asset that our Guard units are.

I think this is a very deficient effort, by any measure.

Well, Lieutenant General Nahom, thanks. I know Virginia has been one of the first States to open up a cyber unit with its National Guard, so I am sure the Air National Guard element there would also be interested.

I think the members of the bipartisan Future of Defense Task Force... concluded China represents the most significant economic and national security threat to the United States over the next 20 or 30 years.