Tuberville, Tommy: this hearing will come to order the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on personnel meets this afternoon to hear from the senior enlisted leaders of armed forces about quality of life investments across the Department of Defense and for their service and to our country you all represent the backbone of our military enlisted service members make up more than 80 percent of the total force and you are the voice of those who serve us every day you see more morale discipline and readiness up close we value that perspective and we need it and lethality and for moving away from distracted DEI programs that do not strengthen combat effectiveness our military exists to fight and to win and to win wars high standards and discipline matter you know at the same time quality of life is a core readiness issue the department invest billions of tax dollars in critical war fighting capabilities and rightly so but too often the most basic investments that directly support service members day to day like housing dining facilities and family support are treated as secondary taking care of the things that take care of the people things that take care of our service members is not a distraction from readiness, it is foundational to it. In recent years, the Armed Services Committee, and this subcommittee in particular, has prioritized investments to support service members and their families, including increasing pay, expanding access to child care, improving spouse employment opportunities, and strengthening military health care. We did this because taking care of our people is essential to maintaining a strong and capable You know, this hearing is an opportunity to circle back and find out whether those investments have resulted in meaningful improvements and where our gaps still exist. We also want to hear directly from you about the initiatives you are leading to support morale and quality of life across your formations. The goal today is to get honest feedback, identify what needs improvement, and ensure both Congress and the Department are focused on their most important asset, the men and women in uniform. So thank you for all appearing today. And Ranking Member and Senator Warren, your statement, please.
Warren, Elizabeth: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm glad that we're taking time to dig into important quality of life issues for our enlisted Enlisted members make up over 80 percent of our active duty forces. They fill critical jobs across the services from intelligence and cyber specialists to engineers and infantrymen, all crucial to upholding our national security. But too often, these patriotic men and women have to deal with quality of life issues that make it harder for them to effectively do their jobs. One big area of concern is the quality of our barracks. We require service members who enlist to live in barracks during basic training and initial job training. The very minimum we owe them is housing that is safe. Instead, we've seen health and safety problems for decades....