WEBVTT

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This is an army today extra

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an update with army Chief of Staff

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General George Casey from kenya . I'm

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Jill Mccabe . We made a lot of progress

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in the last two years . Uh , and

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especially over the last 12 or 18

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months , but we still have a couple of

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tough years ahead of us . You'll recall

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that . I said one of the most important

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things that we could do to get

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ourselves back in balance is to

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increase the amount of time the

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soldiers spend at home in between the

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deployment . The next 12 or 18 months

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are going to be uh , difficult

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because as we shift our emphasis from

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Iraq more towards Afghanistan . Um ,

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we will actually increase the number of

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troops we have deployed slightly by

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about 10,000 before we start coming

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down . You've also taken great strides

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on behalf of families . I think we have

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made great strides uh , in supporting

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families . Since we released the army

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family covered in 2007 and we put our

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money where our mouth was and double

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the amount of money that we were

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putting towards soldier and family

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programs . We have made progress and we

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are quite conscious that we need to

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deliver on our promises . 2009 is the

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year that we deliver on the family

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covenant , soldier , mental health is

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in the news , suicides are up

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dramatically . What's the solution .

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Last year we had about 12,000

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soldiers diagnosed with post traumatic

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stress and these are new new diagnoses .

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That's good news , bad news , bad news

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is , it's a pretty high number and it's

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double what it was two years before .

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Good news is more and more soldiers are

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comfortable that they can come forward

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and get help . Everything that our

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research tells us is that the sooner

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you identify that you have a problem ,

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the sooner you get help , the sooner

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you get better , we will launch a

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comprehensive soldier fitness program

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here later this summer . And we've been

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working on that for over a year . And

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the purpose of the program is to raise

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mental fitness . The level that we now

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give to physical fitness because you

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can build mental resilience much like

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you build hustle mass and the basis of

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this program is to give the soldiers

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the skills that will both enhance their

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performance and allow more and more of

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them to have a growth experience out of

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these difficult circumstances in the

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two years that you've been army Chief

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of Staff , what are you most proud of

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in what still eludes you ? That's a

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great question . I think I'm

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most proud of the resilience

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that our soldiers and families have

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shown as we've gone through a very

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difficult period . I mean we are

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deploying the army at rates that I

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would have thought are absolutely

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unsustainable . But the commitment of

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these men and women and and their

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family is absolutely phenomenal . I

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mean President Obama recognize that in

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his inaugural address and he held the

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american servicemen and women up to the

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popular , up to the people of the

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United States as an example of selfless

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service . So that's , that's , that's

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what I'm most product , what's what's

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still eluding me . The thing that I'm

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working hardest on that I haven't gut

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where I want yet is we need to

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change our mindset about how we

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develop requirements within the army

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and , and we develop our requirements

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in a way that doesn't consider costs in

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terms of people dollars or equipment .

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So you're talking about better business

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practices for commanders ? Not so much

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commanders just yet . I'm working the

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generals A year ago I started sending

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generals to business school at the

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University of North Carolina because

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what I saw is exactly what's happening .

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I saw that in 10 or 11 , I expect that

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our budgets were going to start coming

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down . And one of the things I took

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from this budget exercise on the 10

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budget that we've just gone through

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with the department is we're doing an

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awful lot of things because we can ,

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because the money is there and we have

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to get better at doing things because

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it gives us the most value , everything

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is important and everything what

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provides benefits . But we have to get

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better at assessing what gives us the

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most value for our precious resources .

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And uh , that's gonna be a few more

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years before we get that mindset in the

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entire , that's the army today from

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soldiers , radio and television Atlanta