CHAIRMAN JOIN CHIEFS GEN. DEMPSEY ON SUICIDE ISSUE

FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE
Dempsey: Military Must Persevere to Solve Suicide Issue
By Karen Parrish
SINGAPORE, June 1, 2012 - The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff yesterday said he disagrees "in the strongest possible terms" with an Army major general's characterization of suicide as a selfish act.

"I've been in contact with Army senior leadership and know they share my concern," Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey said, regarding recent controversy over Army Maj. Gen. Dana J.H. Pittard's blog comments, since retracted.

Dempsey spoke with American Forces Press Service while flying here for the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual Asia security summit that begins today.

Pittard, commander of the 1st Armored Division and Fort Bliss, Texas, wrote the blog post in January after attending the memorial service of one of his soldiers, who took his own life. Pittard wrote that he is "personally fed up with soldiers who are choosing to take their own lives so that others can clean up their mess."

Dempsey said the comments were "both unfortunate and extremely inappropriate."
In retracting the remarks last week, Pittard expressed his "deepest sincerity and respect towards those whom I have offended," noting suicide is a very complex issue that plagues not just the military, but society overall.

There have been 140 suicides across the services thus far in 2012, according to defense officials. This compares with 122 at this time last year, and 110 at this point in 2010. Among service members who have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, more have died by suicide than by enemy action.

The Army is the largest military branch and sees the most suicides, but the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force as well as the Army have poured time, money, effort and training into programs and services aimed at stemming the tragic flood. Veteran suicides are also alarmingly high, at 18 per day as reported by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
"We've been hard at [combating suicide] for at least the last seven years," the chairman said. "We have not spared any effort, but nor have we turned the trend line."

Dempsey said he has spoken often and at length about the need for professional military members, from the newest recruit to the most senior officer, "to be very introspective at this point in our history about what a prolonged conflict, the longest war in our history, with an all-volunteer force, has done to us and to our families."

"The issue of suicide, and all of the other tragic mental health issues that we have experienced over the last 10 years of war, require us to continue to seek to learn," he added.

Senior leaders in particular are "accountable for helping the entire profession, the entire force, understand the issues," the chairman said, adding that Pittard's comments "didn't help, but hurt, our efforts to understand. They added another layer of confusion."
Leaders must help men and women who are experiencing "incredible stresses in their lives" get help, he added.

Dempsey said his approach is to ensure military leaders don't address issues such as suicide in isolation.

"We've got ... the issue of increasing suicides; we've got statistics that demonstrate sexual assault remains [an issue]; we've got an increase in reported instances of hazing," he said. "Not all are related to war, but all are related to who we believe we are, and ... what knowledge, skills and attributes we seek in the young men and women who serve -- and the not-so-young men and women who serve."

The chairman said his goal is to see those issues in context with each other, and to ensure recruiting, policies, education and training across the forces are managed to address the issues as effectively as possible.

"Over the last 10 years we've learned a lot about what attributes we may need for the future," Dempsey said. "Are we, in our recruiting base, seeking them? In our education system, are we developing them? In our evaluation reports, are we rewarding them?"
The military is a wonderful profession of which he couldn't be more proud, Dempsey said, yet there are now a number of "weak signals" that, taken together, emphasize the need for continued learning and change.

"Ultimately, we are responsive to the people of the United States of America and to the Constitution," he said. "You're not a profession just because you say you are, you're a profession because you earn that title every day. This is another one of those instances where I think we've got to take a good hard look at ourselves."

The chairman noted he often speaks of maintaining the bond of trust within the military.
Part of that bond rests in leaders paying attention to the mental health of service members, building in their troops a sense of resilience and the self-confidence that comes with "hard training, knowing you're mentored, knowing you're cared for, knowing there's someone out there that cares about you and you're part of a team," he said.

Multiple pressures come to bear in the lives of service members and their families, Dempsey said.
"We've got to keep at this," he said.

CHAIRMAN JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF PRAISES "HEROES OF MILITARY MEDICINE"

FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE
Chairman Praises 'Heroes of Military Medicine'
By Karen Parrish
WASHINGTON, May 3, 2012 - The network of people, government and private organizations that tends to America's wounded, injured and ill service members has achieved results over the last decade that are "absolutely remarkable," the nation's top military officer told an audience here yesterday.

Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke last night at a "Heroes of Military Medicine" event hosted by the Center for Public-Private Partnerships at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine.

"I do find heroes and military medicine to be a little redundant, actually. ... Every time we think they can't do more for us, they step up and find it," the general said.
Earlier this week, Dempsey noted, he attended the opening ceremonies for the 2012 Warrior Games in Colorado Springs, Colo. The games, which continue through May 5, are a series of Olympic-style events in which wounded, ill and injured service members of all services, along with veterans, compete in archery, cycling, shooting, sitting volleyball, swimming, track and field and wheelchair basketball.

The Warrior Games, created in 2010, are a combined effort of the U.S. Olympic Committee and the Defense Department. The games are notable because of the courage of the competitors, who Dempsey said are "young men and women putting ability over disability."

The chairman said attending both the games and the "heroes of medicine" gathering in the same week highlighted for him the connection between today's service members, who survive combat injuries at rates never before seen, and the medical establishment that makes their survival possible.

"What I want you to know tonight is how much we, who wear the uniform today, appreciate what everyone is doing to pull together in the common cause of making sure that the young men and women who put themselves in harm's way are cared for," Dempsey said.

GENERAL DEMPSEY'S SPEECH ON NEW NATIONAL DEFENSE STRATEGY

FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE
Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., May 1, 2012. DOD photo by Army Staff Sgt. Sun L. Vega
General Dempsey Explains Defense Strategy at Nation's Oldest 'Think Tank'
By Army Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr.

WASHINGTON, May 1, 2012 - The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff today discussed the new national defense strategy and its core pillars in remarks at the nation's oldest international affairs "think tank."

Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey spoke at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, founded in 1910 as a private, nonprofit organization.

"Over the past months we've formulated what I guess is now being called a new defense strategy," Dempsey said. "It's built on a [Quadrennial Defense Review], of course, but it's new in several important ways."

One of the aspects of the strategy is rebalancing U.S. forces with emphasis on the Asia-Pacific region. During a visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels last week, he said, he was asked with "great interest" what rebalancing means.

"I suggested to them that it's a process – not a light switch. We'll work our way into it," he said. "It starts with intellectual bandwidth more than anything. We have to shift some of our intellectual bandwidth and start to understand how rebalance ourselves so it's not just about our resources, equipment or basing. "It's about thinking, and we are beginning that process now."

The chairman said the second pillar of the strategy, and one of its cornerstones, is building partners, and not because the United States will be doing less. Rather, he said, it's because the world over the last decade or two has become a "security paradox" that has seen a proliferation of capabilities and technologies to middleweight actors and nonstate actors. That he said, "actually makes the world feel, and potentially be, more dangerous than any time I remember in uniform."

Dempsey noted that he came into the Army in 1974.
"It's not a paradox that necessarily has to be met with bigger military forces," he said. "I think it's a paradox that has to be met with different military forces. And among the things that will make that work [is] our ability to build on existing partnerships around the globe, notably the North Atlantic alliance, [and] others as well."

Adversaries rarely mass against the United States and its allies any more, the general pointed out. "They decentralize, they network and they syndicate," he said, making development of emerging partnerships especially important now.

Adversaries use 21st-century information technologies to syndicate groups of "criminal actors," the chairman said -- groups that come together based on moments in time when they want to find a common purpose and pull apart otherwise.

"But we, the quintessential hierarchical institution on the face of the planet ... have to find ways to be a network ourselves," he said. "And that means a network of interagency partners internal to our government."

The chairman conceded that building partnerships isn't an easy endeavor, and acknowledged a need to improve processes in intelligence sharing, technology transfer, foreign military sales -- processes he said "tend to somewhat hinder our ability to build partners."

The final aspect of the new strategy, Dempsey said, is the integration of capabilities the military didn't have 10 years ago, such as the cyber and special operations capabilities and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance technology that exist today. Other capabilities originally considered niche capabilities now are being integrated into conventional ways of operating, he noted.

"We've moved now from writing our new strategy to beginning to challenge ourselves on what it will really take to do everything," he said. "And the three things I mentioned here today to you ... really are the key to that endeavor."

JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN ORDERS REVIEW OF ISLAMIC EDUCATION MATERIAL USED IN TRAINING

FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE  

Dempsey Orders Review of Courses Dealing With Islam

By Jim Garamone

WASHINGTON, April 25, 2012 - The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has ordered the directors of joint military education institutions and combatant commanders to examine the scope and content of training and education courses dealing with Islamic extremism to ensure they are appropriate and in keeping with U.S. values and principles.

Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. John Kirby said Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey sent the letter after students at the Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va., raised concerns about the content of a class entitled "Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism." Dempsey ordered the course closed until the study is complete.

"Our concern is there are some unprofessional things being taught to students in professional military education curriculum," Kirby said during a press availability today.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is aware of Dempsey's order and he shares the general's concern, the captain said. "He also completely endorses the chairman's intention to look at joint professional military education across the board to make sure we have done an adequate scrub on the content of this type of curriculum," Kirby said.

Some of the material in the course was not simply objectionable but inflammable, Kirby said. A student who finished the course last month brought it to the chairman's attention.

One example of the objectionable material was a Power Point slide highlighting inflammatory statements. On the slide was the assertion "that the United States is at war with Islam and we ought to just recognize that we are at war," Kirby said. "That's not at all what we believe to be the case: We're at war with terrorism, specifically al-Qaida, who has a warped view of the Islamic faith. That's just one example.

"These assertions are not in keeping with our principles or ideas," he continued. "We believe the right thing to do was to suspend the course due to some of the things that were presented in the course."

Dempsey has also ordered an inquiry into this particular course to determine how this material got into the course, and what is needed to improve it moving forward. The course has been taught at the staff college since 2004.

U.S. RELATIONS WITH JORDAN, GEN. DEMPSEY PAYS A CALL

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin E. Dempsey introduces himself to Jordanian National Security leaders in Amman, Jordan, Apr. 21, 2012. DOD photo by D. Myles Cullen

Dempsey Visits Jordan to Reaffirm Partnership
By John D. Banusiewicz
American Forces Press Service
AMMAN, Jordan, April 21, 2012 - The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff arrived here today to visit his Jordanian counterpart and to meet with officials at the U.S. Embassy.
Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey kicked off his first visit to Jordan as chairman with private meetings with U.S. Ambassador to Jordan Stuart E. Jones and members of the embassy's staff, followed by a Jordanian-hosted dinner. Tomorrow, he'll meet with Jordan's chief of defense, Lt. Gen. Mashal al-Zaben.

The chairman took time after his embassy meetings to mix and mingle informally with service members stationed here.

"This is a counterpart visit and a chance to thank the Jordanians for their critical support in Operation Enduring Freedom, as well as to discuss regional security issues," said Marine Corps Col. David Lapan, Dempsey's spokesman. "We remain firmly committed to our partnership with Jordan's armed forces and greatly appreciate their contributions in support of coalition operations."

Jordan is one of the most vital U.S. allies in the region, Lapan said. "We are fully committed to our partnership during this time of dynamic change," he added.
The world is closely watching developments in Syria, Lapan said, and the United States shares Jordanian concerns regarding the deteriorating situation there.

"The Jordanian military continues to display exceptional leadership throughout the region," Lapan said. For example, he said, the United States and Jordan will conduct Exercise Eager Lion 12 from May 7 to May 28.

The exercise will bring together more than 8,000 participants from more than 15 countries over five continents. Its focus is to strengthen military-to-military relationships of participating partner nations through a joint, whole-of-government, multinational approach, the chairman's spokesman said.

PANETTA, DEMPSEY TALK ABOUT SEQUESTRATION'S SHADOW

FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE  
Panetta, Dempsey Say Pentagon Feels Sequestration's Shadow

By Jim Garamone

WASHINGTON, April 16, 2012 - The shadow of sequestration is being cast over the Defense Department, and members of Congress must act to dissipate it, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said here today.

Panetta and Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke about sequestration and the defense budget during a news conference at the Pentagon.

"Sequestration" refers to a mechanism based into the Budget Control Act that would trigger an additional $500 billion cut across the board for defense spending over the next decade if Congress doesn't find an alternative by January.

"I think ... the shadow of sequestration is there," Panetta said. While the Defense Department has received no guidance from the Office of Management and Budget to begin planning for sequestration, the threat of it is having an impact on the department and on the industries the department depends on, the secretary said.

"In the end, it's up to Congress," Panetta said. "In the coming weeks, they will begin considering the defense authorization and appropriations bills. Our hope is that Congress will carefully consider the new defense strategy and the budget decisions that resulted from that strategy."

Any changes the Congress contemplates will affect other sections of the budget, because it is a zero-sum game, the secretary noted. Because of the Budget Control Act, he added, any change in any one area of the budget and force structure will inevitably require offsetting changes elsewhere.

"That carries the real risk that ... if this is not done right, the result could be a hollow, unbalanced or weaker force," he said. "Our hope is that our strategy will not be picked apart piece by piece."

Panetta said he hopes Congress will be reasonable. "There isn't any member [of Congress] I've talked to that doesn't think that sequester is a disaster," he said. "There isn't any member who has said to me, 'Oh, it'll be great.'" All of them understand that it's the wrong way to go.

"And I just have to hope that ultimately, they will find the courage and leadership to be able to address that issue, detrigger sequester, deal with the other challenges that are out there and try to do it as soon as possible," he continued, "because frankly, the longer this drags on, the more of an impact it has in terms of the planning process and in terms of the budget process."

Dempsey said the department confronted the new fiscal reality last year and developed the new strategy. The fiscal 2013 budget request came from that new strategy, he said.

"It took us every bit of energy we had to get from there to the budget submission in February," the general said. "So I mean, I would anticipate that we would have to begin doing some planning in the mid to late summer if we have any chance at all of reacting to it should it trigger."

This is a critical moment for the United States, Panetta said, and while the nation must cut the military, this does not mean threats have disappeared.

"We need to rise to meet the challenges that are facing us in this dangerous and uncertain world, and we can't afford to have the Congress resort to bitter partisanship or parochialism at this critical time," Panetta said. "So the message we wanted to send Congress today is that there is very little margin for error with this package.

"That's the reality that all of us are living with," he added. "The strategy we developed will maintain, we believe, the strongest military in the world by every measure, and that's essential because of the nature of the security challenges that we're facing."

CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF SAYS WORLD IS "MORE DANGEROUS"

FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey addresses faculty and students during a forum at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., April 12, 2012. Dempsey fielded questions regarding the global security paradox. DOD photo by D. Myles Cullen   


WASHINGTON, April 13, 2012 – The world today is less violent but also more dangerous than at any other time in human history, the nation’s senior military officer told a Harvard University audience yesterday.
That “counterintuitive combination” of peace and potential conflict is “the essence of what I like to call the security paradox,” Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the audience attending a John F. Kennedy School of Government forum in Cambridge, Mass.

“Although geopolitical trends are ushering in greater levels of peace and stability worldwide, destructive technologies are available to a wider and more disparate pool of adversaries,” Dempsey said.
In the past, the general noted, it took a nation’s power to create a national security threat: industrial progress fueled the world wars, and the threat of mutually assured destruction between superpowers kept the Cold War from getting too hot.

Today, the same rise in global trade and information technology that has increased cooperation and cut violence between nations also has put 21st century weapons in reach of smaller groups, the chairman said.

“More people have the ability to harm us or deny us the ability to act than at any point in my life - and that’s the security paradox,” he added.

While in the past only the United States could drop a bomb down a chimney, “now dozens of middleweight militaries around the world have that [precision munitions] capability,” he said.

Potential adversaries now can buy “off-the-shelf” more than 90 percent of the components needed to build an electronic warfare system, Dempsey said. That creates a risk to “the very systems that provide our battlefield edge: our computer networks, our sensors, and our precision navigation ability,” he said.

Cyber attack is another evolving threat that doesn’t require a large military to launch it, Dempsey said.

“With the right computer virus, a single person can disrupt life for … an entire city, and potentially even our entire nation,” he added.
“The message is that the margin of error is growing smaller,” the chairman warned.
The U.S. military must counter these new and elusive threats even as its budget shrinks, Dempsey noted.

“We have to make hard choices about where to put our resources — and where to pull them back,” he said.

The Defense Department strategy balances cost, force structure, mission and risk, Dempsey said. The strategy aims for a force with fewer service members, greater agility and more powerful technology, he added.

The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps need to meld service-unique strengths to build capabilities “that don’t exist unless they’re combined,” the general said.
The force will be regionally postured but globally networked, “scaled and scoped to demand,” he said.

“Finally, it will be a force that provides a degree of security in balance with what the nation needs and what the nation can afford,” Dempsey added.

The security paradox presents a difficult challenge, Dempsey said. “But challenges are nothing new to this nation,” he said. “We have adapted and re-invented ourselves many times throughout our history.”

The newly commissioned USS New York is emblematic of the nation, and of 21st century U.S. military strategy, the chairman said.

The New York is an amphibious ship that carries a Marine expeditionary unit, which combines ground, air and logistics capabilities, and usually has about 2,200 Marines and sailors assigned.

The bow of the just-commissioned ship, Dempsey said, “was forged from seven tons of steel pulled from the rubble of the twin towers. …This steel — tempered to be stronger than it was before — will carry experienced, war-tested Marines half way around the world and back.”

The New York and its crew will patrol the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian Gulf, “keeping faith with our partners and allies in port calls and conducting exercises or actual real-world operations as needed,” he said.

The ship is a testament to the nation’s resilience, the chairman said.
“When I think of the challenges we face,” Dempsey added, “I think of the USS New York. She and her crew are part of the agile and technologically advanced force we are building. They are ready to prevail in any conflict. They are the best this country has to offer.”

CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF TALKS ABOUT MILITARILY'S BOND OF TRUST

FROM: AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE

Dempsey: Military Must Keep 'Bond of Trust' With Troops, Families

By Elaine Sanchez
WASHINGTON, March 30, 2012 - The military is defined by a bond of trust -- between service members, their families and their communities -- that must remain unbroken, the military's top officer said here today.

"If we do that one thing, think about our profession as united with a common bond of trust, and commit ... to earning it every day. I don't care what happens to the budget ... I don't care what happens to the other countries in the world that might want ill to come to us, we'll be fine," Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said.

Taking care of troops is a matter of trust, he added. "If we lose that [trust], it won't matter how much money we throw at ourselves. That's a fact."

After months of discussing budgetary and equipment concerns and fresh off a trip to South America, Dempsey turned his attention to what he called the military's "human dimension" at the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury's Warrior Resilience Conference. This conference, in its fourth year, is intended to equip service members, units, families and communities with resilience-building techniques and tools.

As he spoke to an audience of nearly 750 behavioral health experts and military leaders, the chairman referred to an image of a squad leader in Afghanistan on the screen behind him. The soldier, his face contorted in a mix of fear and courage, was speaking on his radio with an evident sense of urgency.

Whatever it is the soldier is asking for, he'll get, the chairman said. "That's what sets us apart [as a nation]. He's going to get it -- whether it's kinetic ordnance, whether it's supplies, or whether it's what you're here to talk about today.

"We're going to get them the life skills, the confidence, the hope, which equals on some level ... the resilience you're here to talk about in our force, in our families," he pledged.

It took about a decade for the force to regain its sense of pride and clarity after the Vietnam War. That time lapse can't occur again, the chairman said.

"The world is changing so fast around us," Dempsey said. "If we wait until 2020 to build the kind of strength you're working to build into our formation, it will be too late.

"I fear if we wait and don't address this now, we not only won't be doing ourselves any favors, we won't be doing our nation any favors," he added.

The people gathered for this conference are taking steps on this front, Dempsey noted, "by seeking a deeper, richer understanding of what has happened to us as a force over the last 10 years.

"More importantly," he added, "what are you going to do about that? What are you going to do about the fact that 10 years of war has put enormous pressure on the force?"

They will be tackling these issues in an environment of challenged resources, the chairman acknowledged, and while ensuring they build and earn trust with their subordinates and coworkers each day. "Keeping faith with ourselves, our communities, our families ... that's what it's all about," he said.

Dempsey again referred to the squad leader's picture, this time pointing out the soldier's wedding ring. "If you think about this bond of trust, it doesn't stop in the forward edge or the rear edge of the battle area," he said. "It's got to run all the way back to hometown USA where he has a family."

Dempsey stressed the importance of turning to others for help when needed, calling resilience a "team sport." The chairman drove this point home with a story about a prior bout with throat cancer. It hit him hard, he said, since he'd always tackled obstacles on his own.

Instead, he said, he relied on his medical team, his family and his friends for help. "I realized for the first time in my life, I can't do this alone," he said. "It took cancer for me to figure that out. We can't let our young men and women figure that out the hard way."

Dempsey thanked the audience for their unwavering commitment to troop and family wellness. "What you're doing here has an absolute direct correlation with who we are today, but more importantly, has an even greater correlation to who we will be in the future," he said.