JASC-260508-0800

I'd like to call the Joint Armed Services Committee meeting to order. We are in the Betty Davis Room in Juneau, Alaska, and the time now is 0805. We appreciate the opportunity to speak with the folks here commanding our forces in the north. We have members present: Co-chair Representative Gray, Senator Wielekowski, Senator Merrick, Senator Dunbar, Senator Rauscher, Representative Dybert, Representative Holland, Representative Nelson, Representative Stutes. We also have our civilian folks who are here too on behalf of the Joint Armed Services Committee, Bob Dole, myself, Chair Kawasaki.

I think we also have joining virtually retired Brigadier General Julio Báñez, I think, and I'm not sure if retired Colonel Jones— retired Colonel Tim Jones will be online, and George Vikalis. And they are long-time standing members of the Joint Armed Services Committee. We want to thank them for their service. I'd like to thank Meroen Kawakami with Senate Records for being here today taking notes, and Doug Bridges, the moderator with our Legislative Information Offices. We have 4 presentations on today's calendar.

The first presentation is an overview of the Navy in Alaska. We have with us Rear Admiral John Townsend, the Commander of the Navy Region, who is going to present an overview. Um.

And I guess if you could introduce yourselves for the record. Oh, actually, let me, let me read the entire— I actually have something here to read. Sorry about that.

You were first commissioned in 1995 through the U.S. Naval Academy. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in economics, a Master of Arts in National Security and Strategic Studies from the College of Command and Staff at Naval War College. His awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, Air Medal, Joint Service Commendation Medal, and the Navy Commendation Medal. And he is currently serving as the commander of the Navy Region Northwest.

Welcome to the Joint Armed Services Committee, sir. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for the introduction. As you've stated, I am the commander of Navy Region Northwest. I took command in, in last August.

This is my first time being stationed in the Pacific Northwest and my first time visiting Southeast Alaska since I assumed command. It's beautiful here and the area has a rich cultural history, so I feel very fortunate in this role to be able to come here and meet all of you, and thank you for your time. Maintaining open dialogue with our partners is important to me, as I'm sure it is to you as well, so I truly appreciate continued engagement with us even after some of us in uniform roll out. Um, somebody certainly will be coming behind me because we understand the importance of partnerships globally and locally. We're committed to maintaining current relationships and building new ones.

So thank you for inviting me to speak today to you all and to share some information about your US Navy in the Northwest Region. Next slide. Okay, my job as region commander is to provide shore support to the Pacific Fleet, our sailors and Marines and their families. My team and I support more than 200 Navy commands across 11 states that make up the region Northwest, including Alaska. We have 4 major installations, all of which in Washington State.

Additionally, the Northwest Region includes 16 Navy Reserve Centers, and over 79 sites. The Navy contributes approximately $15 billion a year into the local economy along with more than 8— 82,000 jobs. Next slide.

We have more than 160 aircraft including the P-8 Poseidon, uh, multi-mission aircraft and the EA-18 Growler jets at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. Homeported in the Northwest are one aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, 13 submarines homeported at Naval Base Kitsap-Banger, and 7 surface ships at Naval Station Everett. Our installation also hosts Coast Guard cutters and Military Sealift Command vessels. Next slide, please. While the majority of our Navy installations, shore facilities, and personnel in the Northwest Region are in Washington State, the Navy continues to have a small but significant presence and interest in Alaska and regularly visits for various projects and critical training activities.

We have Navy Reserve Centers, Navy personnel on the staff at Joint Alaska Command, Navy training at Kodiak and in the Gulf of Alaska, and we have Southeast Alaska Acoustic Measurement Facility near Ketchikan. The Navy's only West Coast asset for making high-fidelity passive acoustic signature measurements to our ships and submarines.

Alaska is part of our homeland in the Arctic region, and the homeland defense remains the Department of War's number one priority. The Arctic region, uh, of strategic importance to the United States and our allies and partners, we must be prepared and postured to deter our adversaries and defend the homeland. We face an urgent and growing threat in the Arctic region posed by strategic competition, aggressive military posturing, and economic encroachment by foreign adversaries. These actions undermine US sovereignty. They jeopardize critical shipping lanes, and they threaten energy, mineral, and national defense, defense interests.

The Navy will support the Department of War's priorities in the Arctic to defend the homeland, protect vital sea lanes, and deter coercive behavior and conventional aggression against the US and our allies and partners.

Our partnerships enable us to sustain the Navy's mission, and on that note, I want to highlight the Navy Region Northwest strongly values our relationships with the federally recognized tribal governments in Alaska. In the fall of '24, the Navy formally apologized to Alaska Native clans for wrongful U.S. military actions against the Tlingit villages of Kake in 1869 and the Angoon in 1882. We issued these long overdue apologies during ceremonies held at Kake in September of '24 and in Angoon in October of '24. The Navy acknowledges these tragic incidents resulted in loss of life, loss of resources, and intergenerational trauma for the communities.

We are committed to supporting long-term community healing in Kake and Angoon, and my staff remains in regular communication with the tribes. The Navy has maintained presence in Alaskan waters for a long time, and because our ability to continue to operate and train in Alaska, we are ready to respond to an incident and project power when needed. One of the major training events we participate, as you all know, is Northern Edge, which is a biennial Alaska-based joint service training exercise conducted by US Indo-Pacific Command and led by the US Air Force during the odd-numbered years. So the next one is anticipated to occur in 2027. The Navy is committed to communicating early and often with the Alaska tribal, governmental, and community leaders when training activities are being planned.

Additionally, the Navy has site restoration and cleanup work occurring at several former Navy sites here in Alaska. Speaking of former sites, I know there are ongoing high-level discussions with military leadership across the Department of War about reestablishing a presence on ADAC. As far as I know, no formal decisions have been made yet, but the Navy has gathered information to assess the idea of potentially conducting a more specific series of operations from ADAC. I can't speculate on any decisions which may be made about additional Navy installations being established in Alaska at this time.

In addition to operational presence, we participate regularly in Alaska symposiums and conventions to provide information about the Navy to the community. As well as hear from the people of Alaska. The Navy has participated in various community events, both virtually and in person, including the Alaska Forum on the Environment, Alaska Marine Science Symposium, KOMFISH Alaska, Juneau Maritime Festival, Alaska Federation of Natives Convention, and the Cordova Sobriety Celebration. In fact, we just had a team participate in KOMFISH in April. When operational maintenance and training schedules allow, the Navy also has sent ships to Alaska for port visits and community engagement.

A Navy ship was not able to come to the Juneau Maritime Festival this year, but I look forward to attending, and the Navy Band Northwest will be performing as well. Speaking of ships, there are a couple of future Navy ships named after noteworthy Alaskans. These are the USS Ted Stevens a guided missile destroyer named after the late Senator Stevens in honor of his staunch support to the Navy and Marine Corps. The Navy accepted delivery of the future USS Ted Stevens in December of 2025, and I can now say that this ship is anticipated to be commissioned in Whittier sometime this year.

The second is the future USNS Solomon Atkinson. A Navajo-class towing, salvage, and rescue ship named in honor of Solomon Atkinson, a trailblazing Alaska Native who was one of the very first U.S. Navy SEALs.

This class of ship is a multi-mission common hull platform that will deploy to support a range of missions such as towing, rescue, salvage, humanitarian assistance, oil spill response, and wide area search. And this ship was just recently commissioned, or christened rather, on May 2nd.

American freedom and independence were won on the waves and is maintained today by the most capable fleet in history. From the Arctic to the South China Sea, our future fleet of ready warships like the future USS Ted Stevens and the future USNS Solomon Atkinson will deliver an effective and decisive response to any future fight. Next slide, please. For 250 years, the US Navy has operated with allies and partners to protect the homeland, preserve the freedom of navigation, secure sea lanes of trade, and project our nation's power forward. America remains a maritime nation, and the Navy will continue maintaining a forward presence to underpin maritime dominance and guidance and guarantee free flow of commerce that powers our nation's prosperity and that of the people of Alaska too.

We greatly value our Alaskan communities. We are grateful to the Joint Committee and the people of Alaska for the support as we continue to use training ranges to conduct critical joint training operations that will help the U.S. Navy maintain its maritime warfighting and strategic advantage and strategic deterrence capabilities for another 250 years. Thank you again for inviting me to speak with you today, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Admiral Townsend.

We're just really thrilled to have you here with talking on behalf of Navy. We sometimes don't get this opportunity, so it's a sort of a big deal that you're here. I wanted to see if there might be any questions of members of the committee.

Yes, Representative Co-Chair Frey. Thank you, Admiral. I was— my ears perked up, the participation in the Cordova Sobriety Festival. Can you just talk a little bit about that?

I will have to refer that to the staff for any details on the event beyond what I've said in the comments. I'm just aware of the participation. Patient. Follow-up. Yes, follow-up.

Thanks. Well, I will say, as the former PA for the 297th Infantry Battalion in the Alaska Army National Guard, deployed all of my— not all, most of my problems as the medical provider for the battalion were caused by alcohol. It definitely hurt readiness. It hurt It caused fights. I mean, just the number of problems caused by alcohol while deployed was hot.

It was—. I can't stress it enough. So I'm thankful that you guys participated in that festival, and I just wanted to highlight that. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Thank you. Thank you, Co-Chair Gray. Representative Birthday Girl Dybert— I mean, Birthday Woman. Good morning. Thank you through the co-chair.

Thank you, Senator. Commander, thank you so much for being here. It's an honor to hear your presentation. I just wanted to say thank you for your words on the slide regarding the Navy apologies to CAKE in September and Nangún to the tribes there. That is very meaningful.

I'm Koyukon Athabaskan from the interior. That's where my tribe is. And, you know, when we grapple with my community with mental health, with language loss, and, you know, there's a lot of issues. And it's the number one thing that I hear at doors. And your visits and your apologies means a lot in that one step in the healing of our history here in Alaska.

So I just want to say, anaa baasi, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. We have a question from Representative Nelson. Uh, thank you, Mr. Co-chair.

Um, Admiral Townsend, you talked a little bit about, uh, the base, um, possibility of ADAC and of the Northern Exposure, uh, Northern Edge, uh, exercise. Is this a change of the Navy's Arctic policy? Is it being renewed? I know it's been quite a few years since the latest studies on naval policy for the Arctic. Is this a new push or is this something that's just preparing for the future with some of the near peers nearby?

What's, what's kind of the, your take on that?

Well, thank you for the question. I think it's probably a little bit of both. You know, as we watch what the Navy's engaged in in the present moment, you know, with current, you know, global situations, I think that in some regards, the Navy, you know, has some hesitation in looking forward as much as we should. All right. We—.

Our government has recognized that the Arctic region is of critical to national security. And I think that the money that is in the current NDAA for investment in the Arctic region, and specifically as we talked about in the statement there with ADAC, I think it's a little of both. It's an acknowledgement of our need to invest in the future, and it also certainly addresses the existential threat that is real in the Arctic region. Follow-up? Yep, follow-up.

Thank you, Mr. Co-chair. To Admiral Townsend, so do you think this is going to accelerate in the next 5, 10 years, or do you think it's going to maintain that kind of level of attention? What's your opinion on that? Yeah, I guess I'm somewhat hesitant to offer my opinion on it.

You know, I think the commitment for what we have made should be taken on face value, and And again, I would anticipate a continued focus on it as an area of interest for the Arctic region as a whole. Thank you. Sure. Thank you, Representative. Representative Holland has a question.

Great. Thank you. Through the co-chair, Admiral, thank you for being here, for your words, for your report today. First off, kaj Holland. I represent House District 9, which includes Whittier.

Alaska, and I just want to thank you for the work that's going on to prepare for the commissioning of the Ted Stevens Ship this fall. And, you know, the community— and I just was on the phone yesterday with the city manager— they are very excited. They are working very hard this whole year, putting a tremendous amount of effort into the success of this event, and the excitement that they have for being able to help showcase and support the Navy in this effort. So thank you for the work going into that, and we're looking forward to the work. I want to highlight and ask, you know, for any updates related to the Office of Naval Research's participation in this state.

The ONR has been a vital part of our innovation ecosystem in terms of funding work at the university, funding work in our community, helping support defense-related, dual-use type of innovations that are of benefit to the Department of Defense as well as to the— our communities. And I'm curious about your view, if you know of this program and its future role in helping continue to be such a vital fabric for our community. And then finally, I just want to touch on the Nome and the increased exposure to the Northwest Passage shipping and how that will affect— I think we talked a little bit about ADAC a little further out, but that passageway, the increased traffic and exposure there. So a couple things: the innovation, economic development, and the Nome and Northwest Passage. I'm curious about any updates you can share with us today.

Thank you. Okay. So as I alluded to in my statement, you know, the relationships across, you know, all communities are key to what we do. I can tell you that Close to home for me in Region Northwest, we have the Navy's Undersea Warfare Command at the base we call Keyport. It's literally just a couple of miles from the Northwest Region headquarters.

And our work, I know, is done in conjunction with academic institutions. That, I think, is our conduit for a lot of what you're talking about. But, you know, embracing technology and innovation for the future is certainly key. To what we do. And we can't emphasize enough the need to move with a sense of urgency in that regard.

So I appreciate the question. In terms of specifically Nome and the Northwest Passage there, I'll have to take that question for the record and get back to you on any details related specifically to Nome. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Representative Hall.

And we have one final question from Representative Stutes. Thank you very much. Kawasaki, and it's more of a statement than it is a question. Coming from Kodiak, we are grateful to have the Navy cold water training for the SEALs there in Kodiak, and, and I just want you to know how much we appreciate having it there and how they have kind of meshed into our community in their own quiet way. It's really really impactful to our community, and we're grateful to have the Navy SEALs there.

Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Uh, thank you, Admiral, for being here today. We also just wanted to say that, um, you know, we're— we hear a lot about ADAC.

We— it was in our congressional— our congressional briefings recently, um, and we're looking forward to some of the expansion of the U.S. Navy as our final branch in the state of Alaska. So thank you very much. We will—. I think we're going to take a brief at ease, and I'll pass the gavel on to the representative. Thank you.

Next, we will hear from Rear Admiral— Rear Admiral Bob Little. He is a graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Management and has also earned a Master of Business Administration from both the College of William and Mary and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Rear Admiral Little has served aboard 6 Coast Guard cutters, held 3 afloat commands, accumulated over 13 years of sea time, and operated in both the Atlantic and Pacific areas of operations. His awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, 6 6 Meritorious Service Medals, 3 Coast Guard Commendation Medals, and 1 Coast Guard Achievement Medal. Rear Admiral Little assumed his duties as Commander of the Coast Guard Arctic District in July 2025.

Welcome to the committee. You may begin your presentation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you so much for the opportunity to address you today, and thank you for your interest in the joint forces and in the United States Coast Guard. We don't just serve in Alaska, we live in Alaska, and the work that you do here in the legislature is vital to supporting our service members, civil servants, families, and the communities that we live in.

So thank you for your service. If we can go to the next slide. I'm sorry, I'll back up. For the record, Rear Admiral Bob Little, the commander of U.S. Coast Guard Arctic District.

So I won't go into a lot of detail on this slide. Slide, but I did want to just show a little bit of a depiction of where your Coast Guard is throughout the state of Alaska. And those orange stars indicate where we have infrastructure and substantial Coast Guard assets that are placed everywhere from southeast here in Juneau, Auke Bay, all the way up to, to south central, and of course out the Aleutian chain, including Kodiak. Where you see the green dots are places that we operate temporary facilities forward operating air stations or otherwise own some Coast Guard infrastructure. And that includes partnering with the, with the National Guard up in Kotzebue where we lease some of their facilities and do a seasonal presence up on the North Slope in that region.

Our Coast Guard population, over 2,000 Coast Guard members and civilians and then another 2,600 family members and dependents. And so as I mentioned that we live in Alaska, those are, those are your citizens and those are your community members, and, and they participate in and live and benefit from, from the great benefits and opportunities that are here in the state of Alaska. And then also not depicted on the slide, and as you watch my, my fellow colleagues' presentations and look at the Department of War laydown throughout the state, I'll just offer that we are, are extremely well integrated and connected in sharing facilities, and I'll use Kotzebue as an example, but my men and women can't do their missions without the support of both commercial, state, and other facilities throughout the region that get them to the, to the place that they need to be to conduct the missions. And so we greatly benefit from other infrastructure and other investments in the region. Next slide, please.

So what do we do for Alaska and the country? What's our commitment to you? We save lives. We control, secure, and defend the U.S. border and maritime approaches. We facilitate safe and secure flow of maritime commerce that is vital to our economy and economic prosperity and strategic mobility.

And we respond to crisis and contingencies that can occur without notice.

My vision is that through unwavering strength, our adversaries are deterred, economic prosperity is assured, and American access to this vital region is guaranteed. Our operations are aligned with safeguarding Alaska's economic engines, protecting fisheries, ensuring the flow of commerce and tourism, and hardening and securing maritime infrastructure, all while prioritizing the safety, security, and resilience of Alaskan communities through robust, robust and local partnerships. Next slide, please. I'm going to speak to these, these, to this slide really through the lens of those mission priorities that I just referenced on the previous slide. What you see up there are a few social media posts of some of our more significant activities over the course of this past year.

Saving lives through crisis response and search and rescue, operating in some of the most challenging and extreme environments globally. Men and women of the Arctic District successfully saved 292 lives this year, from the Alaska storm— from the storms in western Alaska to mariners, fishermen in distress, members of the Alaskan communities, including indigenous people exercising subsistence hunting and fishing in the marine environment. Our broad authorities and security measures ensure a safe maritime environment that protects the vital traditions, vital, vital traditional subsistence activities of Alaska Native and coastal communities. In securing and defending our, our nation and Alaska as the primary maritime military presence in the U.S. Arctic, we projected U.S. sovereignty to secure Alaskan maritime borders and approaches by increasing our surface and air presence through, through ports, waterways, and coastal security operations, actively monitored and responded to heightened adversary activity, strengthened interoperability with our joint partners, and executed multi-agency strike force operations alongside federal, state, and local authorities to keep cargo moving while dedicated— while detecting and deterring illicit narcotics or contraband before they reach Alaskan communities. In our efforts to facilitate the flow of commerce, we leverage broad authorities and robust partnerships to ensure safe, legal, and efficient operation of Alaska's maritime economy.

We secured Alaska's ports, waterways, and maritime transit routes from internal waters to the high seas to guarantee safe and efficient flow of commercial shipping, fishing, tourism, recreational, and subsistence use of the water. As many of you, I'm sure, know, approximately $15 billion of oil was transported through the Alaska Maritime Transportation System. Of that $15 billion, another $10 billion in expenditures returned to the state state of Alaska. $3.5 Billion of that wound up in— as government revenue. And I think we all know that the value and importance, the strategic value and importance of the Alaska oil production to the U.S. oil supply is critical.

We conduct intelligence-driven law enforcement operations to oversee and protect state, federal, and international fisheries. Again, about a $16 contribution to the U.S. economy, $6 billion to the Alaskan economy and that industry. Employs over 17,000 Alaska residents. We actively protect both physical and cybersecurity of the, of Alaska's maritime transportation system by focusing on strategic, strategically critical nodes. We prevent disruptions to regional supply chains and strategic military mobility.

90% Of consumer goods that enter Alaska enter through the port of Alaska. If we were to lose that access, we have about 3 to 5 days of consumables on the shelves in our, in our local grocery stores. Uh, we would see the crippling of commercial aviation and international commerce through the reduction in, uh, availability of aviation fuel. And we would see reduced combat readiness to our Department of War partners. I illustrate that, or I, I, I make those statements just to illustrate the importance of the maritime transportation system.

That we protect to the state of Alaska. In responding to crisis, we maintained peak readiness to decisively respond to crises, search and rescue contingencies, and natural disasters across the harsh and expansive Arctic environment, ensuring the safety of Alaskan residents. We actively deepened our interoperability and conducted joint training with state, local, tribal, and non-government organ— organizations to ensure unified collective response to community needs and regional incidents. This cooperation was evident in our shared response to the tragic storms in western Alaska. The night of the worst impacts, U.S. Coast Guard and National Guard crews rescued over 50 citizens.

Over the course of the next several days, evacuated thousands. This was an incredible demonstration of cooperation among federal, tribal, state, local community level, and NGOs. Another example is our local planning and contributions to preparedness for for the annual Glacial Lake outburst flooding events that happen here in Juneau every summer now. And we routinely exercise for mass rescue, tsunami contingencies, emergency and community resilience, and more. Next slide, please.

Modernizing for the future. This year, we commissioned the United States Coast Guard stores right here in— Coast Guard Cutter Stores right here in Juneau. This is the first new Coast Guard icebreaker that we've commissioned in over 25 years, and I think many in this room probably know that her future homeport will be here in Juneau. We commissioned and welcomed 3 fast response cutters in Kodiak, and we also welcomed the crew and the cutter Blacktip to its new homeport of Valdez this past summer. And the recent historic investment into the Coast Guard by the Congress of almost $25 billion will transform the Coast Guard into a stronger, more steady, more ready, capable maritime force.

Nearly $9 billion of that $25 billion will be dedicated to building ice-capable Coast Guard cutters, to include $300 million for Juneau to begin the work of creating the homeport for Storis. That concludes my formal remarks. If we can go to the next slide, I'm happy to take questions from the committee and the chairman. Thank you, Admiral Little, for your presentation and for your service. Do we have any questions?

Representative Nelson, and then we'll go to Senator Dunbar. Uh, thank you, uh, Mr. Co-chair. Uh, to Admiral Little, um, you talked a little bit about the Port of Alaska, and that's in my district, uh, but my question is really about, uh, the broader infrastructure across the state, especially for Coast Guard. I mean, anywhere from, uh, housing out in Kodiak to infrastructure and docks, uh, here in Juneau and down in Ketchikan. Can.

Is there anything that the legislature can do to kind of help with this burden? Because I know it restricts how much the Coast Guard can do across the state. Is this more of a federal issue? Is there anything that the state can do to step in to alleviate some of this? Congressman, thank you for the question.

No, sincerely, you know, it is a great question, and I think ultimately, I think the answer comes in the form of partnership. I think the answer is it is a federal challenge. I think it is a state challenge. It's a local challenge. And so although as an operational commander, investments and infrastructure, building homes, home ports is not in my portfolio.

As the operational commander in Alaska, I would tell you, you know, my view is that we absolutely have to do it in partnership with you all. We have to look, we, the Coast Guard, I think need to look for more creative ways, maybe owning our own homes, building our own homes is not the best solution. Maybe we can partner with a community like Juneau and look for more creative combined ways to increase the, the housing capacity in a, in a particular port, uh, as an example. And I think with our Department of War colleagues in the room, as I mentioned on the infrastructure slide, where, where we can benefit from National Guard infrastructure, where we can benefit from the Department of War presence in Anchorage, as an example. I think there's opportunity to continue to partner, ensure that we don't invest redundantly, and really look for ways in the communities and in the state to do it together.

Follow-up? Thank you, Mr. Co-chair. No, I appreciate that, and it's good to see, you know, kind of where that partnership can lie. I'm glad you talked about the icebreaker stores. You know, I think that there's definitely a lack of icebreaking capacity out here in the state.

Especially with some of the new shipping routes that are opening up as well as some of the fishing areas that are being utilized by foreign actors. What is kind of the Coast Guard's plan in the future to kind of combat this and work on it, especially with how much pressure it's going to be coming over the next 50 years in the Arctic? Yeah, thanks again, Congressman. I— my— among my priorities as the Arctic District Commander is really to begin pressing into that operational space, which is understanding that we're going to see more, a more navigable Arctic Ocean. We're gonna see an increase in traffic through the Bering Strait, an increase in, uh, commercial demand and otherwise through the, with fisheries and, and other traffic.

So, uh, I think what you see in terms of investment in Arctic Security Cutters is the, is the tip of the spear of operational capacity and capability to be physically present and able to respond to whatever the need is in the otherwise ice-denied regions. Um, my goal in the time that I have here is to press our teams into Arctic operations, to, to utilize opportunities like Kotzebue and others to get into the hard-to-operate-in areas, uh, with equipment and identify what, what capabilities, what challenges do we have to operate in that environment and make sure that we're ready to respond to an oil spill, to a search and rescue case, to an adversary. The biggest challenge is the weather and the environment and the infrastructure, and my goal is to identify where those needs are. Excellent. Thank you.

Thank you. Senator Dunbar. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Admiral Little, for being here and also for highlighting the Port of Alaska.

Through the efforts of Senator Merrick. We're hoping to have some funding in the capital budget for— to, to continue to improve that. Hopefully it survives the veto pen. But my question is about your service members that are integrated through our communities. I was fortunate enough to grow up in Cordova, and we had the Sycamore there and another ship— its name is now escaping me— but the, the children of the service members went to my school and were my friends.

And so my question is, have any of your service members expressed concern to you about the cuts at the schools throughout the state due to the budget deficits? Thanks, Senator, for the, for the question. I will say that maybe not specifically, but anecdotally, schools anywhere in the United States for any of our service members are a concern and in many cases are a challenge. So Certainly the capacity of the public school system to ingest and support and sustain our families and our kids is vital to us. So we certainly would agree that better schools make for better homes for Coast Guard and other service members.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative Dybert and then Senator Rauscher. Thank you, co-chair.

Through the co-chair, Katsubiu. Admiral, thank you for being here. Nice to meet you. I am thinking about— I'm looking at the map and I'm thinking about Katsubiu. I've never been there.

My community is Fairbanks. We're deep in the interior, so not familiar with the area. And here in the legislature, we've been having robust conversations about disasters and especially along the coastal area. I'm just wondering my questions, and thank you for your response to Halong and the folks from Kipnik and the other communities in that area. My question is the weather, and you said weather is a challenge.

Do you see— are you seeing an increase with tides, waves? Storms year to year as we think about how to respond to disasters here in the legislature. Thank you, Co-Chair. Yes, Senator, thank you for your question. And I want to— as I'm, as I'm sitting next to a National Guard colleague here, I just want to also call out the other responders that responded to the storms in western Alaska.

Our folks were fortunate to be ready and, and get there quickly, but, uh, but that was an ongoing, as you know, and still still continuing project and tragedy that we're still collectively working to help. But I just want to highlight that we were just a part of that response, but are very proud of our Coast Guard crews that were able to respond. To your larger question, I, you know, I won't— I am definitely not an expert in science and where the, you know, where the climate is going. But I think it's very safe to say, as I mentioned in my earlier remarks, we are seeing a reduction in sea ice in the Arctic. And that, that impacts— that reduction of ice or longer navigable season impacts western Alaska and certainly the North Slope.

And what I'm, what I'm learning as I come into the job, and Kugilingok and Kipnuk were great examples of that, is when there's no ice there to protect them from the winter low-pressure systems that blow like hurricanes, we do see a change in and the environmental impact, like a flooding event like we saw in the Delta. So I think as we see a change in the protection that we actually get from the winter ice, we are likely to see a change in the impacts to our communities and the people that live in those environments. I appreciate that. Thank you. And our last question from Senator Rauscher.

Yeah, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Represent Valdez, and we appreciate your presence down there, your 88 active members down there. It's a very integral part of the area and the community, and I just want to say it's a very congested area in the summer with fishing, and you got boats going and barges going, and you've got Seiners and everything going on. We just appreciate what you do for us down there and the way you interact with the community, and your presence is very well appreciated, and we thank you.

Congressman, thank you, sir. Um, thank you, uh, Admiral Little, for being here today. We'll go at ease to change slideshows. At ease. Thank you.

Next, you will hear from Brigadier General Matthew Komatsu, who graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy and later received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Alaska Anchorage. He joined the Alaska Air National Guard's 212th Rescue Squadron in 2011 and is only the second National Guard CRO in history to wear a General Star. Currently, he serves as the Air National Guard Assistant to the Command— Commander of Alaskan Command. Welcome, General. Go ahead and begin your presentation.

Well, thanks so much for that kind intro, and thank you to the JAS today. I've been here before. As the executive officer to the adjutant general. We were in a bigger room, and last time Tucker fell asleep. So as we go through slides, if I have to reach over and man the keyboard, don't be alarmed.

I also just want to call out, as a member of the Alaska Air National Guard and part of the guard team up here, represented, you know, here at the front of the room, we've got, you know, 4 members current or prior with Guard affiliation. So it's, it's always, it's always good to be back in formation with the rest of the Guard. On behalf of General Davis, who is currently enduring a death by PowerPoint as he undergoes transition back into the cockpit of an F-16, happy to be here to represent. He's sorry you couldn't make it today, and I'm just looking forward to Trying to make it through. It's very clear to me after watching my colleagues, I've got too many slides.

If I speak a little bit quickly and kind of breeze through, please take notes. Feel free to call me back to it. But I'll be moving fairly quickly as we go through. So let's do this. OK, so I think there's no slide about the military in Alaska where you can't have Billy Mitchell on there.

So we've got it. And it's, it's really interesting for me to see how prescient he was at the time. I don't know that he anticipated the future. But, you know, understanding Alaska's place in the globe, especially as we tip that map, I talk a lot about tipping the globe up towards Alaska so that we take a more geographically representative view of what things look like up here. It tells a really great story.

The only thing I don't like about this map in relation to our current strategic guidance is the fact that it only has Russia on there as opposed to China. And so I'll get to a little bit of that here in a moment.

We are a three-hat command, and you don't need to know what that means. Hats, but Lieutenant General Davis does wear 3 hats, and I'll get into that here in just a moment. But it's a big mission that we've got in Alaskan Command. The mission for Alaskan Command, or as we call it, ALCOM, has really undergone, undergone, excuse me, some incredible growth over the past couple of years as we have pivoted as a nation towards homeland defense. And so, I'll talk a lot about those things as I move through the slides here.

That great graphic you got on the upper left here is Lieutenant General Davis, what he has set forth for the Combined Headquarters in terms of his priorities. And really, you know, there's a reason why we don't have 3 priorities for the 3 commands is, for anybody who's been in the military understands we love to argue about who's in charge. And up here in Alaska, as you well know, the Venn diagram of overlap and interest is too tight, right? You cannot say, well, I'm just gonna do this under this hat, and then I'm gonna ignore that, and I'm gonna go to this other meeting with the same people and we're gonna pretend like we don't know each other. He recognizes that.

This is his third time in Alaska. His priorities reflect what he believes unify the efforts across the three commands and break down those barriers.

Breaking down barriers within a bureaucracy, it sounds like an easy thing to do. It is not. But no place more important within the Northern Command AOR than right here in the Alaska Theater of Operations. Go to the next slide, please. Okay, so this is what we've got going on here.

Alaska, the Arctic area of interest. You've got the list of Arctic nations there. As well as some locations and some facilities. Really, you know, this kind of paints a, from an infrastructure view, what we have got for partners and allies as well as adversaries for laydown within the Arctic area of interest. Don't need to say it to you all, I think you know it, but it's always worth saying, Alaska is what makes the United States an Arctic right?

We hear our quote, I'll say that, and it's been, again, as we pivoted back towards homeland defense, an increasing recognition that I have observed within the past couple of years on the critical role that Alaska plays when it comes to defending the homeland and the ability to fight forward. Next slide, please.

Some of my colleagues have alluded to this, And so we got a handy— this isn't a pie chart, it's a bar chart. We've got a handy bar chart to illustrate some things here. The background map that you see in front of you is the newly established Alaska Theater of Operations, which NORTHCOM essentially— you know, we love, again, the military loves maps. We love drawing lines on maps. NORTHCOM took a look at the map and said, hey, Alaskan Command, you've got it within this area.

So our, our area of responsibility and our charge for homeland defense is to make sure that within this wedge that you see in the map, we are highly focused on deterring competitor and adversary activity. The adversary activity that you see there, we all know it. China and Russia have been picking up. On the Russian side, really a return to sort of Cold War type things, right? So more of a continuation of a norm or a previous norm than a significant increase in activity.

Although within the scope of the past couple years, you're seeing the general rise going there. What has been most worrisome in addition to that is the arrival of the Chinese adversary activity within the AKTO. So we've got that represented there. If you can't tell, when I first looked at this slide, I actually thought those were tanks on the bottom. Those aren't tanks, those are ships.

So just to clarify there, in case you were wondering why we're showing tanks, those aren't tanks. But, you know, the story that this slide tells is that Russia is continuing to do what it has always done, and China is attempting to make themselves known and have a presence within this area. And it's our job to make sure that we tell them that that is not okay. Right? Next slide, please.

Again, no slide about the military in Alaska is complete without essentially telling any Texans in the room that we're bigger than you. And I don't need to tell you that the logistics, the tyranny of distance is a very real thing. You all know that. But it is amazing how little, how much education you have to do about that difficulty with the rest of the security establishment. Great story about this.

At a conference at a location that will not be named here, we actually had to stop the conference at one point and do a 1-hour geography lesson on Alaska because there were planners in the room who thought that they could convoy from Eielson out to, I believe, Erickson.

So it is what it is. It's our job to make sure that we're educating, but the partners, the partners that we work with here in the state, you know, they understand it as well as we do. We are all on the same page. You know, I'll just touch briefly on some of those things. We've got the Alaska NORAD Region, Alaskan Command, and 11th Air Force there within the combined headquarters, 11th Airborne Division.

We've got the installations, we've got the radar sites, we've got our Coast Guard partners. Spread all across the map. And I think the story that, that I would like to leave you with from this slide in particular is that Alaskan Command is in charge of, of none of it, right? All these things are retained under service responsibilities. So Rear Admiral Little's stuff is his stuff, the Army's stuff is the Army's stuff, and the Air Force's stuff is the Air Force's stuff.

It's a very interesting arrangement. However, I think the, the unique change that you've seen over the past couple years with ALLCOM is our ability to integrate and work better with those partners. And in order to achieve what we call as, or what we refer to as integrated effects on the campaigning side. Next slide, please. This is the operating environment.

You guys know the operating environment. I'm not gonna belabor the point here. It's big, it's maritime, it's land, it's cyber, it's space, it's all of it. All the things. And as we've observed, again, just to bang that drum, uh, the adversary knows that this place is important, um, not just for defending the homeland, but also for, for getting, uh, to potential conflicts, uh, elsewhere in the world.

Next slide, please. I'll just dwell here for a little bit of time, um, just to highlight the unique nature of the three commands. The Alaska NORAD Region is established by treaty. It's our partnership with Canada, uh, under the NORAD treaty, um, to defend, uh, the homeland. And, uh, and, and obviously, uh, Cold War era bomber, uh, bombers coming over the pole, uh, long-range radar sites and all that kind of stuff.

Um, that mission remains vital today as we, uh, uh, as we defend the northern approaches, uh, what we refer to within the NORTHCOM community as sort of the 10 o'clock, our partners in Canada. My, my peer within the CHQ is a Canadian one-star, and his nation integrates here within Alaska and then operates unilaterally to safeguard the 12 o'clock as well. I'll skip over to the right to 11th Air Force. So Lieutenant General Davis, wears the hat as the 11th Air Force commander. The interesting part here is that his authorities there are really limited to, you know, how do I take care of the forces that are beneath me?

So it's things like sustainment, some of the logistical support, as, as Mr. Gray was referring to earlier, within any military formation, good order and discipline is always a thing, and that's part of his responsibility as the 11th Air Force Commander. However, when it comes to the actual, what we refer to as tactical command of those organizations, those authorities reside with the Pacific Air Forces underneath US Indo-Pacific Command. So it's a unique relationship there, but again, over the past couple years, what we've seen is really sort of a breakdown of barriers. We sit at that seam between General Guio and Northern Command and Admiral Paparo and the US Indo-Pacom. And really the charge there from General Guio to Lieutenant General Davis is you have to bring those two things together and make sure that we are working across commands.

So, you know, back to that original map that I had up, what I didn't have up there was the NORTHCOM line and the Indo-Pacom line. And those lines actually don't agree with where our theater lines are, right? So we have the job of synchronizing between those two organizations. Finally, Alaskan Command, sub-unified command of U.S. Northern Command, and under General Keough, we are highly focused on defending the homeland, currently extremely focused on campaigning, but also looking forward, or not looking forward, we are also anticipating what it would look like in order to execute the warfighting mission in homeland defense within Alaska, because we cannot ignore it. This is a critical place.

Our adversaries know it. And if we have to fight here, we need to know how to do it. Next slide.

I'm not going to spend too much on this slide here, but it gets back at sort of the, you know, I don't think I really understood NORAD until I got into the building here last July. But this is a, this is a really good way at taking us back to that treaty establishment and how the two nations work together in order to defend the airspace and the northern approaches. Those northern approaches remain viable threat vectors. And so, you know, up there we've got the, we've got the Alaska NORAD region, right, which I just talked about a little bit. We've got the Canadian NORAD region or CANAR.

And then we've got the Continental NORAD Region, or CONAR. So sorry, I apologize. I'm doing my best to not use acronyms more than I absolutely have to, but it's just inescapable in any military-related briefing. Next slide, please. Okay, focusing a little bit on Alaskan Command here.

So homeland defense, job number one, and Defense Support of Civil Authorities. I'm going to talk a little bit about DISCA here.

The state of Alaska is awesome at this. As an Alaska National Guard member and two-time member of the Alaska National Guard Joint Staff and partner with DHSEM, I can tell you that Alaska is really good at managing its own problems. So somebody asked me the other day, when was the last time we actually had to get the big fed Title 10 US military rolled in on a response up here in Alaska. And other than the Valdez oil spill, which I'm still not sure what Title 10 response that we had, 1964, the Good Friday earthquake. I mean, that's really— that in my mind, that's the level of disaster it will take again in the the state in order to bring in that level of Title 10 military presence, because the state, the, and the National Guard and the local communities have done a really good job at preparing themselves and managing, uh, those things.

So when you look at something like, uh, as bad as Typhoon, uh, Ha Long was, um, absolutely tragic, uh, it never got to the level where it made sense to make requests to Title 10, because between the state the volunteer organizations and the Alaska National Guard, it was, it was very well covered. So we don't worry too much about that, which is great, because we can focus on homeland defense. And really, on that campaigning side, what we're really focused on right now is kind of that, that second-to-last bullet there, which is the strategic messaging piece. Can I actually just skip straight to the next slide? Okay, so here's what's different.

Over all the years, there have always been things going on in Alaska. Services have been doing service things, commands have been doing command things, and every one of them would come up here and do these things and say, "Hey, we're, we're doing these things and it's awesome." But what we were losing was the ability to fuse those things together and bring the messaging back into a unified posture so that when we talk about our adversaries, looking at Alaska, they understand that we are ready to go not only as services, but as a joint force. And that is one of our strengths as the military establishment is to bring joint effects to the fight, right? And we start that now before things get bad, right? So in campaigning, what has changed is as all these things were going on, we've been given the responsibility as Alaskan command to synchronize the effects that each one of those things do.

So do we own them? Kind of. What we really own is the process, the planning, and sort of the command and control of those things as they execute. Next slide.

Again, Alaska is really— is very, very strategic. And so I'll call your attention to the 11th Air Force installations that reside under Lieutenant General Davis's 11th Air Force hat. Eielson, JBear, Joint Base Pearl Hickam, and then way out there in the second island chain, we've got Guam as well. That's his— these are the units that are his responsibility. As you look at that, you, you think, wow, we've got some great capability here within the state of Alaska.

The important thing to remember about that is, again, Those forces in terms of the things that they do belong to Pacific Air Forces. Pacific Air Forces is subordinate to US Indo-PACOM. So what you need to be thinking about is that if something bad happens on the left side of the map, those things within Alaska are going to need to move forward and support that fight, right? And we will be, we will be receiving forces that move into Alaska and sort of replace those things that went forward to do the frontline flight. Next slide.

Talk a little bit about the J-PARC. The J-PARC expansion is a really interesting thing. J-PARC was always awesome, but the expansion is going to make it even more awesome. And kind of the— I apologize, but the way that I think about it is it's bigger in order to replicate replicate the airspace that we think we're, that we're going to fight in. It's better in the way that it takes us and is able to replicate more realistic modern and future threats.

And then the infrastructure that is required in order to, in order to support that. So everybody loves JPARC as it is, and the CODEL is doing a really good job at making sure that the services are thinking about coming up and using the JPARC. And as it gets bigger and that drum continues to get beat, we'll just have the ability to do even more to ready our forces for the future fight. Next slide. And I think this is my last slide.

So, you know, I think the through line here is that it's a busy time. We—. There's another slide that we had hidden here that has all of our partnerships, but you guys get it just like everybody else. Everybody has to work with anybody—. With everybody.

There is no way that we can't do things like dual-purpose investments. There is no way that we can't overlap emergency management with potential homeland defense requirements. There is no way that we cannot work in order to ready ourselves for any future fights without local communities and tribes, partners and allies, and things like that. On behalf again of Lieutenant General Davis and the CHQ team, I thank you for— thank you for your time, and that concludes my brief. Thank you, General Komatsu.

You breezed through those slides. Great timing. Do we have questions from the committee? We'll go to Senator Wilkowski and then Representative Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for appearing before us. We understand that housing is one of the most important factors along with the quality of education for getting service members to bring families with them when they're assigned to a base. Are the off-base housing options adequate now? And based upon future military plans for J. Barron Eielson, do you expect the current housing inventory to be adequate in the future? Thank you very much for the question.

I know that housing is definitely a high priority between the state of Alaska, the local communities, and the services as well. I think, you know, we're looking at a variety of factors, and the best way that I can say this is that the way forward in order to support those families is, again, as Admiral Little was referring to earlier, Everybody's got to work together on that. And as a relative newcomer to Alaskan Command and not, not necessarily getting pulled as much into the 11th Air Force business as, as Lieutenant General Davis is, I see encouraging momentum, progress, and dialogue at the local level in order to address those concerns.

Representative Nelson. Uh, thank you, Mr. Co-chair. Uh, through the chair, General Komatsu, it's good seeing you out here. Um, you, uh, you had on one of your slides competitor activities, um, through, you know, China and Russia, um, the biggest of which, at least in the past couple years, was the spy balloon over the North Slope. Uh, and it's great to see that the, the Raptors that got stationed out here, you know, were utilized and were able to engage with that target.

And of course, we're not in a classified setting, so you can't talk as much as you possibly could on this. Uh, but is there anything you can inform us about, um, all that attention that was brought, uh, about these balloons, um, and any changes that were made to better utilize some of the, um, uh, radar installations out here to detect future incursions in the future? Okay. That is a, uh, that's like a 4-hour, uh, but here's what I can tell you. Um, the way that I see the balloon event, and again, this is, this is, uh, me as an outside observer, that was a, that was a critical moment in order to help people understand what it meant to do homeland defense in the state of Alaska.

I think it made what had previously been sort of, uh, tweety, uh, doctrinal and, and sort of academic made, uh, you know, uh, discussions real, uh, because something actually had to finally be done, uh, and executed. Um, so when I look at that event, really I see that as, uh, just going back to my sort of storytelling, uh, storytelling roots, that's the inciting event that gets us to where we're at today, right? It's that moment of small crisis, uh, that helps propel what can be a slow-moving organization, the military bureaucracy, as you well know, is not a fast thing. And so I think it helped move a lot of things forward, multiple different lanes, right? So whether you're looking at infrastructure investment or you're talking about who's in charge in Alaska, which that was a discussion item for probably 15 years when it came to Alaskan Command that I think that event lent a sense of urgency to and was able to get us, uh, over the, over the hump on some of these relatively basic discussions that should have been worked out a long time ago.

And follow up real quick, real quick. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair, uh, and, uh, General, I appreciate that. Um, you know, of course we can go into a 4-hour discussion, but other people have questions. Uh, I'm talking specifically about like AR bullet points afterwards that, that came from that incident that's, you know, being utilized now or thought of in the future?

Okay, okay, yes. So what I'd say is, um, you know, I'm not necessarily worried about balloons anymore. Now what I'm worried about is, uh, Chinese research vessels, right? But the— my ability to do anything about those worries is highly informed by the after-action and discussions that occurred from that balloon event. So, for example, the ability of the, of the commander in Lieutenant General Davis to truly focus on and be in charge in order to, you know, respond to adversary activity within the AKTO It seems like a roundabout answer, but it really isn't.

As you know, everything is sort of roundabout in the military. You can't fix, you know, C or D until you get, you know, A and B squared away first. And so that's probably the best way that I can, that I can put that in the unclassified environment. Perfect. Thank you, General.

Thank you, Mr. Carter. Thank you. Due to time considerations, I have to apologize to Representative Holland and Representative of Daibert. We won't have a chance, you'll have to ask after, but we will give Senator Wielechowski his follow-up. Thank you.

Just wanted to get something on the record for you. This is going to be a matter of, I think, pretty big concern in Anchorage. There was a recent United States Department of Air Force draft environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact for perimeter security improvements. The assembly had 3 different members from 3 different districts introduce a resolution, just very— or it's getting introduced. And this was something that came— that was tried about 25 years ago and caused a lot of concern all throughout Anchorage.

And I'm hoping that the Air Force will reconsider their decision. And we'll be issuing some more formal comments. Thank you.

Thank you. Oh, so do you want me to—. No, no, no. Um, thank you so much for, uh, your testimony and your presentation today, uh, General Komatsu. We will go at ease to go to the final slideshow, and I'll hand my gavel over to Co-Chair Kawasaki.

At ease.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I'd like to call the Joint Armed Services Committee back to order. Last, we are going to hear from retired Colonel Craig Christensen. He is serving as the Deputy Commissioner for the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. He received a bachelor's degree in biology from Washington and Jefferson College and a doctorate in pediatric medicine from Pennsylvania College of Pediatric Medicine. He's commission— he was commissioned in the U.S.

Army Reserve as officer in 1985 and entered active duty in 1989. In 1993, he left active duty and entered the Army Reserves to podiatry in Altoona, Pennsylvania. In 1994, he entered the U.S. Air Force, serving until his retirement in 2012, and we are glad to have him as an Alaskan now. Welcome to the committee.

Well, thank you and good morning. For the record, Greg Christensen, Deputy Commissioner, Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. So I'm aware we have a hard stop, so I will, um, hit the high points, but I'll probably skip through a few slides. Our mission statement talks about and represents our department's organized militia, the Division of Homeland Security Emergency Management, our Office of Veterans Affairs, and our, the Alaska Military Youth Academy. Next slide.

I won't go into detail into our org chart other than Major General Saxe is the Adjutant General, and unlike a lot of Adjutant Generals, he's more dual-hatted. He has a number of state divisions underneath him other than just the organized militia. Two other things I would like to point out on this slide, the Alaska Aerospace Corporation administratively falls under our department, although they are controlled by a board. But the Alaska Aerospace Corporation is a very strategic organization, one of four vertical launch facilities in the United States. Most of their funding— they are not funded by the state of Alaska.

Most of their funding is through the Department of War and Missile Defense Agency. So some very important work being done out at Alaska Aerospace Corporation. Also, I'd like to just highlight the Alaska Wing of the Civil Air Patrol. They are also not under the control of our department, but they're a very close partner. Their leadership attends our leadership meetings, and, and we meet with them regularly, and we work with them regularly.

You can go ahead to the next slide. So mainly what I'm going to talk about today is the Alaska Organized Militia, and it's comprised of the Air National Guard, the Army National Guard, the Alaska Naval Militia, and the Alaska State Defense Force.

Obviously our area of operations is Alaska, but the reason for this slide is to talk about our hub-and-spoke concept where, you know, you can see the where the arrows go to those larger stars, those are our hubs, and that's where we tend to put our resources and that we, you know, are able— know that we're able to fly our fixed-wing aircraft into those areas. And then if we need to reach out to villages, then we use the rotary wing, which we did in Halong and many other disasters. But if there were you know, a different situation where, you know, where we had to act militarily, we would use this same construct.

The Alaska Air National Guard. So when we talk about the Alaska National Guard, if you think— if you come from the lower 48, you think of the National Guard as people that, you know, work a week— a couple— a week in a month and, you know, a couple weeks a year and maybe get called up for stuff. The Alaska National Guard is much, much more operational. Many of the National Guard missions are 24/7 alert missions and much more like what you would think of as active duty. We have the combat search and rescue mission, which when they're not deployed benefits Alaskans because many Alaskans are out in the outdoors and every once in a while need a little rescue or a little help.

We have the strategic and tactical Airlift Mission, which is worldwide. The strategic mission is worldwide. And then air defense. And also up at Eielson, we have the air refueling mission. One note, we did lose the mission at Clear, which was, you know, our space surveillance.

And we lost that to the active duty. So now Alaska does now have the Space Force up at Clear Air Force Base. That's Space Force. Space Force. Force.

Okay, next slide. So the Army National Guard, you know, the 297th has the infantry, military police, engineers, public affairs, space sustainment. 38Th Troop Command has the ballistic missile defense up at Fort Greerly. We also have aviation across various places in the state where on the map, if you could see them, you know, they're identified as tiny little Red Stars, that's where we basically have some fixed-wing, I mean rotary-wing assets. And then our Joyce Forest Headquarters has recruiting and training and medical detachment.

Next.

Just threw this slide in, this is just a point in time because a lot of times people don't realize that the Alaska National Guard does deploy worldwide. And point in time here, I would say we have approximately approximately 256 Alaska National Guardsmen deployed currently. You can see the locations. [SPEAKING NATIVE LANGUAGE] Talk a little bit about the Alaska Naval Militia. Not many states have a naval militia, just a handful.

They don't have boats, they don't have ships. They're basically about 46 members who are Navy reservists or Marine reservists and a couple retirees. They assist the Alaska Organized Militia, Alaska National Guard in times of disaster such as Halong. A number of Alaska Naval Militia members activated onto state active duty and deployed out to western Alaska to assist with that disaster.

And Alaska State Defense Force. The Alaska State Defense Force are all volunteers. It's a volunteer militia. Approximately a little bit over 200 members, 23 detachments throughout the state. And very similar to Alaska Naval Militia, their main role is assisting and augmenting the Alaska National Guard in times of a disaster.

A few highlights from the past year. You can see that they've done a number of search and rescue missions, 131 saves. Air sovereignty missions with a number of intercepts of Russian aircraft. The refuelers have done a lot of work transferring a lot of fuel.

Point out that the Alaska National Guard in the past year did respond to the wildfires and significant response to Typhoon Halong. I have a number of slides on those which I will not go into in depth because of time. And then we, the Army National Guard, which was not on the previous deployment slide, did send a few companies of people to Poland and Kuwait, but they're back now. Go ahead. Good.

Okay, shout out to all of our partners, including the Coast Guard, but The evacuation of western Alaska during Halong was huge. The National Guard, the Coast Guard, Department of Public Safety, the PSOs, local search and rescue organizations— and I'm sorry if I forgot anyone— but when that— on October 12th, when that storm came in, within 36 hours, you know, the Coast Guard and National Guard were plucking people off the tops of buildings that were floating miles away from the village. Did a great job evacuating those residents during the immediate aftermath of the storm.

And then huge evacuation effort, you know, using rotary wing out of the villages back to Bethel. And then the top left, you can see that almost looks like leaving, you know, some of the wartime leaving, you know, evacuating Afghanistan or something. That. We had multiple C-17s leaving Bethel back to Anchorage, bringing evacuees back. Shout out to the school district for helping provide the buses to get them from Jay Bear and then to the Alaska Center or the Egan Center.

Just many partners that I could, you know, it'd be a whole briefing to go into that and thank everyone that helped with that.

Let me use this slide just to give a few— so we supported 18 communities, removed 115,000 pounds of debris, 348,000 pounds of cargo was delivered, 491 homes were assessed using a mobile app. We had 221 people on state National Guardsmen and Naval Militia and ASDF on state active duty, and 194 active Guard Reserve members. Just, and so those were just the National Guard numbers. I, you know, I, there are many, many partners that, you know, state, federal, local, that responded to this disaster. And so, you know, those numbers were just the National Guard numbers.

Briefly, I'll talk about the IRT and Innovative Readiness Training. Government entities, youth and charitable organizations, and communities can apply for this. And so it benefits both the National Guard and military and local communities, from local community has a project that could, you know, the training could benefit the military, but the result benefits the community. Some examples, like on the bottom left, up to Shepherd Point in Cordova, there's a need for a 16-mile road. And so military members, not only National Guardsmen but other military services can apply, you know, bid for these projects.

And then they get selected. And so the Alaska National Guard has been assisting with other entities to build this road, and it's great training for our engineer units to be able to actually get out and build a road in Alaska. On the right, you see another IRT is Operation Arctic Care, where we bring medical care. In this case, it was out to, I think, Kotzebue. There's a number of those types of projects, and so, you know, if— we encourage people or organizations to apply to the IRT program or at least look into it.

And I think this will be my last slide. So just talk a little bit about the Alaska National Guard Counterdrug Program. We have an organization that is— it's actually funded by the proceeds that are received from the actions of the, I can't think of the right word, but the money that is received from the actions of the law enforcement is what is funding this program. And so they work with the local partners. So this isn't one of the National Guard's go out there and do their own thing.

They are asked by the FBI, they're asked by the Anchorage Police Department, Department of— Alaska Department of Health, Department of Public Safety, and they— we assist those agencies with providing analysts that may help, you know, with analyzing different patterns. We also provide transportation, we provide some aviation support. Ports. We will assist the Postal Service. And then we also provide a prevention program going out to schools.

And you can see in the box there, you know, assisting with our, you know, federal and state partners, some of the results of some of the drugs that have been taken off the streets. So I think I got through that in our allotted time. And so subject to your questions. Okay, we do— we'll, we'll try to be brief. Um, if co-chair Andrew Representative Gray has a question.

Sure, uh, thanks, Colonel Christiansen. My question is about basically getting an update on an issue that I was tracking a couple years ago. You mentioned that the Guard in Alaska is really a 24/7 operation. If folks to walk into the armory at Fort Richardson, they would see lots of folks in uniform, and they would assume that all of these folks were equals. But we know we have a two-tiered system.

We have folks who are AGR, the preferred status, and those who are technicians. And when I left the Guard, there was a fear that a lot of AGRs were going to have to be reclassified as technicians. This was going to mean that they were paid less, they received less benefits, they got less retirement points, and I'm just wondering if you could update like what's happening in terms of this movement to have less people on AGR status and more people on technician status.

So through the chair, Representative Gray, I'm going to turf that question to my counterpart here, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Tucker. Thank you, sir. Chief Warrant Officer 3 William Tucker, for the record, to co-chair. Um, I think you're referring to the full-time, uh, issue we were having a couple years ago. Uh, we worked with that, and that has been turned off at this point.

So I don't know of any other, uh, time where AGRs would be going to the technician role at this time. Thank you. Okay, yeah, through the chair, Representative Gray. So if, yeah, if you were talking about what we called PEC leveling, yes. We worked very closely with our congressional delegation.

They worked very closely with the National Guard Bureau that we turned— we got that turned off. We did not lose any AGR positions. Yeah. Are there any final questions? Well, thank you.

Thank you, Colonel Christianson, Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. I wanted to take the next 20 seconds to just thank everybody who helped put this on. Thank you all for your presentations. We wanted to thank Jenna Calhoun, Senate staff to the Joint Armed Services Committee, Kyle Johansen, who's in the back, House staff to the Joint Armed Services Committee. Also wanted to thank a couple folks.

Just Tammy Perot has been with us for a long time, and she, if you don't know her, has, has helped us and helped us as Legislature introduce a lot of bills that help our servicemen and women within our districts, and I'm just glad that you're here. She works for the Defense State Liaison Office for the Pacific Northwest region. Also, Angela Laflamme, we just, of course, we're just so excited to always have you grace our office. Special Assistant to the— and Legislative Liaison for the Commissioner and the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. And if there's no other business to come before the committee, we will adjourn on time at 9:30 AM.