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Navy and Marine Corps leaders on Thursday had to respond to concerns from House Armed Services Committee members over the care of combat-wounded personnel and problems with several of their key procurement programs.

The questions posed to Navy Secretary Donald Winter, Chief of Naval Operations Michael Mullen and Marine Corps Commandant James Conway about casualty care were generated by recent news stories about gaps in treatment for wounded personnel recovering at the Army's Walter Reed Medical Center and a TV documentary about ABC reporter Bob Woodruff that dealt with care for brain-damaged troops.

The leaders said they had reviewed their medical facilities and found no similar problems at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center or at hospitals on their bases. Mullen noted that "very few" sailors were in the kind of long-term recovery as the personnel at Walter Reed.

He and Winter said most of the problems with treatment for the severely wounded occurred after they left the services and were waiting to get into other treatment programs.

Conway said care for wounded Marines has been a priority for him and he cited the "Wounded Warrior Regiment" that is being formed with units at the two largest Marine bases to ensure they are cared for during recovery or rehabilitation.

Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., noted the tragic incident of a wounded Marine Reservist from his state who committed suicide when unable to get VA treatment and said the Marine program should be "the absolute model" for extended care of battle casualties. "We need to ensure that they don't fall through the cracks, and they are," he said.

Most of the committee's attention, however, was focused on the soaring cost overruns and major development problems with several Navy and Marine procurement programs, with the Littoral Combat Ship the primary concern.

House Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said the slow shipbuilding rate has reduced the fleet to 274 ships, which he called "a shocking number." He noted that Mullen's 30-year plan to rebuild the fleet to 313 ships depended upon buying 55 of the ships, but the first ones in the class were running at least 50 percent over the predicted cost of $270 million.

"I remain very concerned that cost growth in ships construction could cripple the plan as early as this year," he said.

In a statement read for the record, Armed Services ranking member Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., also cited the 30-year shipbuilding plan and said "you can't get there if every ship the Navy buys is over budget."

Winter acknowledged the problems with LCS and said reviews were being completed to determine the actual cost of the first two LCSs and how the program went wrong. But he said the Navy had determined it needed to exercise more control over its ship construction programs, would stop trying to build while finishing the design, as they did with LCS, and would not award construction contracts until they had a fixed design. That would allow them to use fixed-price-incentive contracts, instead of the cost-plus agreements used with LCS, he said.

COMMENTS

• "Winter ... said the Navy had determined it needed to exercise more control over its ship construction programs, would stop trying to build while finishing the design, as they did with LCS, and would not award construction contracts until they had a fixed design." Has the Navy forgotten the lessons learned from the highly successful "Fly Before Buy" concept applied in the FFG-7 Class Program in the 1970s and 1980s? Jim Ertner Posted March 8, 2007 8:54 AM
• "In a statement read for the record, Armed Services ranking member Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., also cited the 30-year shipbuilding plan and said "you can't get there if every ship the Navy buys is over budget." " Maybe someone should examine how the Navy estimates the cost of the new ships! The Navy obviously low balls the estimates because they know Congress will not approve a higher estimate. Once the building starts the Navy comes back for more because of "cost overruns." There are no cost overruns The original estimates were no good! Cost overruns are estimate underruns! Estimator Posted March 6, 2007 9:21 AM
• “Wounded veterans are a cheap and plentiful renewable resource” While I agree that it seems many of our legislators think such, I feel that is soon to change. With the deployment drains on the Guard and Reserve, the national spotlight on their care upon return home, pay and re-employment problems, Stop-Loss, and disrupted families, I think recruitment will become ever more expensive. I can see the lessons of the past have been forgotten. The elimination of the draft, the post-Vietnam drawdown, public disenfranchisement with our international track record, all led to relatively expensive recruitment efforts of the “All-Volunteer Army” in the late ‘70s, even to McNamara’s ten thousand. Later reactions to those personnel costs incurred led, in turn, to force reductions leaving us the under-manned forces of today. Without the reactionary patriotism of 9/11 to flesh out the forces, the disenfranchised public will look elsewhere for safer opportunities of employment. I think only exorbitant enlistment and reenlistment bonuses, and the lessened recruitment standards being quietly implemented today, will draw in the numbers of recruits needed. While I deplore the current conditions and treatment of our wounded veterans, I appreciate the spotlight on these problems. They show the direct result of shifting money and priorities in that war-time environment. They show the conditions under which all military struggle, even after returning home. They highlight the lack of foresight our leadership exhibited in the assumption of the mantle of “World Police.” If we are to right the wrongs of every tin-pot despot; if we are to insinuate ourselves into ever regional conflict and right the wrongs of the world in the name of flexing our unparalleled super powers, we will have to spend ever more money, and lives. Are we willing, even able, to take on such a burden? Is it better to batter the world’s bad guys or demonstrate our right and might by the example of a paragon society we have yet to achieve? I do not advocate isolationism, nor do I embrace an indiscriminate dictatorial foreign policy. Simply, we must do a better job of looking before we leap, even when goaded into reaction. Tip off GovExec.com reader Posted March 6, 2007 8:31 AM