{"id":23302,"date":"2006-01-27T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T06:35:15","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T06:35:15","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T06:35:15","slug":"secretary_of_the_army_dr_francis_j_harvey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2006\/01\/27\/secretary_of_the_army_dr_francis_j_harvey\/","title":{"rendered":"Secretary of the Army, Dr. Francis J. Harvey"},"content":{"rendered":"
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RUSH: I\u2019d like to welcome to the program Dr. Francis Harvey<\/a>, Secretary of the Army. You were sworn in on November 19th, 2004. What were you doing prior to that, Dr. Harvey?<\/line>SECRETARY HARVEY: Rush, I was in the private sector. I was chairman of a couple of companies, on boards with several others. I had a long career with Westinghouse and ended up as the chief operating officer.<\/line>RUSH: And what was it that stood out for you among your work that the administration sought you out to be secretary of the Army?<\/line>SECRETARY HARVEY: Well, I had a long — first of all, I fundamentally knew how to lead, manage, and change large organizations. Of course, as you know, the Pentagon is in a phase of transformation starting under Secretary Rumsfeld\u2019s leadership, but furthermore, if you look to my corporate career, I was involved for the most of that within the defense and aerospace industry, involved in approximately, from contractor point of view, approximately 25 major perhaps. So I have a great knowledge of defense and have a great deal of experience in, as I say, leading, managing, and changing large organizations.<\/line>RUSH: Well, I have to say, I really am grateful, and a lot of us here are, for people like you, because you\u2019re in the snake pit now, and as evidence — and you don\u2019t need it. I mean, you really don\u2019t. So I look at you as somebody who\u2019s willing to take all this on because you genuinely want to serve the country, and I would —<\/line>SECRETARY HARVEY: My primary motivation is to give back to the country what this great country has given to me. I\u2019ve had a successful business career and I want to serve the country, and this is my time to serve.<\/line>RUSH: Well, we appreciate it, and I also appreciate your time in joining us, because I need to ask you about this Pentagon-contracted study. I don\u2019t know what a Pentagon-contracted study is, and you\u2019re in the Pentagon. It said that the Iraq war risks breaking the US Army, and the secretary of defense, Mr. Rumsfeld, had a briefing earlier this week saying, “No, the force is not broken.” What is this all about? It\u2019s hard for me not to think that this is political. There\u2019s so many leaks that have come out of state, out of Pentagon, over the course of the six years of this administration, and I\u2019m suspicious of this.<\/line>SECRETARY HARVEY: Well, I don\u2019t think this one was political. It was a study contracted to get kind of an outside point of view, and let me say that the conclusion that the Army is broke or the Army\u2019s stretched severely thin, we don\u2019t agree with. Thank you very much for your point of view but we don\u2019t agree with, because today\u2019s Army without a question is the most capable, best trained, best equipped, best led, and most experienced force this nation has fielded in well over a decade. So I can tell you that the Army is performing magnificently. I think you see it in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think you see it in the response to Hurricane Katrina, and Rita. So I think the evidence shows otherwise.<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, the report says that soldiers and brigades are being deployed more frequently and for longer periods than what the Army believes is appropriate in order to attract and retain recruits, basically. It\u2019s puzzling to me that the Pentagon can ask for this, the report comes out, and then the people that ask for it say, “No, this is wrong.” It probably confuses a lot of people.<\/line>SECRETARY HARVEY: Well, I\u2019m sorry it does confuse people, but the evidence says otherwise, because last year we had the highest retention rate in the Army we had in five years. And I think retention is the greatest indicator of morale and stress on the force and all these other statements. As I said, we retained 69,500, the highest in five years, and I think if you think about that retention, it\u2019s a great indicator of a number of things. First of all, it says the soldier is satisfied and has confidence in the leadership. The soldier is satisfied that he has the equipment he needs to do his job. The soldier is totally satisfied with the job he\u2019s doing and the difference he\u2019s making in defending the peace and freedom of this country, and that he likes his quality of life. <\/line>So all those factors are answered by the retention rate, and if you want to get more detailed you just look at the retention rate of the 3rd Infantry division that\u2019s just rotating out of Iraq this month. They beat their retention goal by 36% and that goal was the highest that anybody can remember in their history. That was, by the way, their second deployment. So all the indicators in the general retention and specifically with the unit that had been deployed twice now in Iraq indicate that the Army is not broke, that the soldiers have high morale, and they are deriving a lot of satisfaction out of the difference they\u2019re making in the world, and they\u2019re very, very proud of being the liberators of 50 million people and providing them with a democratic way of life.<\/line>RUSH: The Associated Press is reporting that a retired Army officer wrote the report, Andrew Krepinevich<\/a>…<\/line>SECRETARY HARVEY: That\u2019s correct.<\/line>RUSH: Do you know him?<\/line>SECRETARY HARVEY: I do.<\/line>RUSH: You do. Well, he\u2019s concluded that the Army can\u2019t sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency, and he cites as evidence the Army\u2019s 2005 recruiting slump which they say missed the goal for the first time since \u201999, and I\u2019ve read just the opposite. I\u2019ve read that the recruiting goal not having been met is a trumped up story, and it sounds like it is from what you just said.<\/line> SECRETARY HARVEY: Well, we were talking retention, Rush. Now, by the way, I think correlating recruiting goals with stress on the force is not the proper correlation. A recruiting goal have nothing per se to do with the stress on the force. It\u2019s retention, and as I say retention is at a five-year high. Now, addressing recruiting, we did miss our \u201905 goal, but let me put that in perspective and tell you what we\u2019ve done and what we\u2019re doing right now. We had a goal last year of 73,400 in round numbers. The ten-year average of our recruiting was 74,400. So we missed it by slightly less than a thousand or approximately a thousand. So historically we did not do bad against or our performance was not that out of line with past performances. We are trying to grow the Army, so we have a goal of 80,000. So that is our challenge. For the last seven months we have made our monthly goals — and the reason that is, is because in the early spring when we started missing goals we developed and implemented a number of initiatives from increasing the number of recruiters, to increasing the incentives, to changing and enhancing our advertising campaigns. So we took a whole basketful of initiatives, and I think that has a positive effect, and as I say, we\u2019re on track so far this year, but make no mistake about it: it is challenging, but we are being, I think, very proactive about it, and so far, so good this year.<\/line>RUSH: I think, to me, just as an average citizen, we\u2019ve got essentially an all-volunteer Army, and everybody that signs up for the Army these days knows pretty much the odds are pretty good they\u2019re going to go off somewhere into combat or into the theater of battle.<\/line>SECRETARY HARVEY: That\u2019s right.<\/line>RUSH: And I think it\u2019s profoundly positive, says something tremendous about — when you look at the diversity of this country, it strikes me how you can go to a city and you can find 19 and 20 and 21-year-olds partying like there\u2019s no worry about anything in the world, and other parts of the country, in the same city, you can find same age people who have a totally different outlook who want to join the military in these times, in a time of war to defend and protect the country — and I\u2019m not criticizing either side. I just think it\u2019s amazing. No draft is required. There\u2019s no conscription here. I think this is something that the American people instinctively know and are very proud of the US Military.<\/line>SECRETARY HARVEY: I can say on my part I\u2019m very proud of our young soldiers and our young men and women who decide to serve. Like I said at the beginning, you know, I\u2019m giving back to this great country, and my opinion is that serving our nation is the greatest work of life, and our young soldiers and the recruits that decide to do that have made the same decision. I tell all the young people out there that the Army is a great institution, a respected institution, and if they join it they\u2019re going to gain a skill, they\u2019re going to improve their citizenship, but most important they\u2019re going to be part of the organization that — an organization that the nation relies on to preserve its peace and freedom and to defend its democracy, and that\u2019s what our soldiers are doing. <\/line>RUSH: Did this report address specifically the Army, or all branches?<\/line>SECRETARY HARVEY: It was really focused on the Army, and, quite frankly, Rush, the suggestions that were made in that we\u2019re already doing. Likewise, the suggestions in the Perry report that came out a couple days ago, all the suggestions and recommendations we have been taking action for at least the last one to two years on all the recommendations. So we\u2019re moving out, and we have moved out, and we will continue to implement initiatives by which we preserve this all-volunteer force. Because as you noted, the quality is high, and it\u2019s all volunteer, and it\u2019s doing the mission. So we\u2019re doing everything we need to do in my opinion to preserve and sustain that all-volunteer force. Very important for the country. It\u2019s certainly not my Army. It\u2019s not the chief of staff\u2019s Army. It\u2019s America\u2019s Army, and it\u2019s the nation\u2019s Army, and it\u2019s very important that we sustain that high quality that we have, and that\u2019s through all volunteer.<\/line>RUSH: Well, Dr. Harvey, I appreciate your time, because, you know, the people, because it\u2019s a volunteer force, because it\u2019s a time of war, because there are so many harping voices of a political nature saying that soldiers cannot hack it, they don\u2019t have what it takes, when they read a report that says the Army\u2019s broken, it concerns them, so I thank you for your time to come on and address it.<\/line>SECRETARY HARVEY: That\u2019s just the opposite the case. I think, as I\u2019ve said this afternoon, I appreciate being on your show and good afternoon. I\u2019ll be glad to come back any time.<\/line>RUSH: All right. We\u2019ll be glad to have you. Dr. Francis Harvey, Secretary of the Army, back in just a moment.<\/line>END TRANSCRIPT<\/line><\/p>\n

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RUSH: I\u2019d like to welcome to the program Dr. Francis Harvey, Secretary of the Army. You were sworn in on November 19th, 2004. What were you doing prior to that, Dr. Harvey?SECRETARY HARVEY: Rush, I was in the private sector. I was chairman of a couple of companies, on boards with several others. I had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nSecretary of the Army, Dr. Francis J. 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