Candid Advice

Retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper appeared before the Senate Budget Committee last week to offer his views on the defense budget and the Quadrennial Defense Review. Van Riper sits on a congressionally mandated commission charged with critiquing the Pentagon's recently released QDR, so his opinions on these topics carry some weight in defense circles.

One of Van Riper's criticisms centered around the training and education of those in uniform.

I find strong evidence in the defense budget request that it supports both acquisition and refurbishing of needed weapons and equipment. Unfortunately, I cannot find the same support for the professional education and training essential to reacquiring and building the knowledge and skills required to fight regular nation- state enemies. The joint forces and the Services too often look to training and education accounts as bill payers when funds and personnel are short in other areas.

Van Riper also had candid advice for countering what Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) dubbed an “utterly unsustainable course” in federal spending, a large part of which goes to the Defense Department and, more specifically, to the Military Health System.

“I started from humble circumstances . . . I worked hard both as a Marine and since retirement," Van Riper said. "But my wife and I are blessed that we probably, in terms of income, are in the top 3 percent of the citizens. You need to tax us; you need to tax all of us more. So you need to pass health care reform because you won't fix military health care until you fix health care reform in general."