GAO Report on Senate Holds on Flag, General Officers

On two occasions in 2020 and 2023, all nominations for general and flag officers (GFOs) were on a blanket hold from Senate confirmation. The 2023 hold lasted approximately 10 months, not two weeks. Senior leaders within DOD, including the Secretary of Defense at the time and a group of former Secretaries of Defense who served in bipartisan administrations, expressed concerns that the nomination hold in 2023 posed a risk to national security and the well-being of military families, among other things.

You asked us to review issues surrounding past holds on GFO nominations. This report describes effects on military readiness, leadership continuity, nominated officers, and military families as a result of past Senate blanket holds on GFO nominations, as well as steps DOD took to mitigate the effects of the holds.

The 2023 Senate blanket hold on GFO nominations lasted for approximately 10 months and affected 447 individual GFO nominees.

During the 2023 hold, DOD senior leaders expressed concerns about risks to national security. The 2023 hold on GFO nominations affected DOD’s leadership continuity across the department. Our review of readiness documentation and data did not identify challenges for unit-level readiness.

The 2023 hold disrupted the military promotion cycle for some officers, which affected nominated officers’ eligibility for promotions and pay. Effects on military families varied based on individual circumstances. DOD officials cited military families’ inability to move to planned duty stations, enroll children at their next schools on time, and seek new spousal employment opportunities as financial and personal challenges stemming from the hold.

DOD mitigated potential operational effects of the 2023 hold by proceeding with planned assignments for some officers, deferring retirements, and having senior civilian executives and officers serve in acting capacities to ensure continuity of operations.

What a pile of garbage. We don’t need more Generals or Admirals right now; we have 938 Generals and Admirals at the Pentagon. Who creates more asst, so add another 938 more 1-star and above leaders, and you wonder why????? All these lazy leaders do is waste money. USAF leaders, in particular, as I am a retired USAF NCO, I know firsthand the mess the USAF is in. The last general in charge of the USAF created the forced wearing of glow-in-the-dark belts for flight-line workers for what reason??? In my 12 years of AD service, I had to buy and wear eight different styles of uniforms. That’s work uniforms! That’s what Generals and admirals do: create a mess for others to fix!

Want more? They spend billions of dollars on fighter aircraft that are knocked down by guerrillas with RPGs, ala Vietnam.

The very last war we won was ww2. And we did that with fewer than 10-15 Generals and Admirals. So precisely why do we need 938 Flag Officers???? This is the same group that wants to junk the A10, after spending millions on upgrading it, then we have the C5 mess because some idiot general said we need special equipment to load or unload the B747 FreighterTransports, that’s why we need the C5M junk truck, as we called them. The C-141 was 200 % faster, and on a run from McGuire to Frankfurt, it could get there with a load of stuff. That was the A model, so the generals spent billions more to modify the fleet of A models to B models. They destroyed them by forcing them to fly low level, while the 747s modified to carry military cargo were flying 75% of the missions that the C5 could not fly. By the way, the C5 uses the same ground support equipment that could be used to load and unload a 747, freighters, which every Friday we unloaded 5 of them and switched cargoes on them, and all five flew out in 6 hours. At PanAm, I worked for 2 years in the cargo department.
I dare any C5 to do that; you can’t get five C5s to fly back-to-back missions. The B747 Freighter always does it for UPS, FEDEX, and most major airlines.
Which is presently up to its 8th model???? Explain that to me. Why does the C5 even exist while the 988 leaders buy 28-million-dollar fighters that terrorists in Ukraine shoot down? Doesn’t anyone at the 5-sided house realize history?????? I spent 6 years in SAC, two tours, USAFE fighters, and fighter interceptors. In every fighter unit, we all had hanger queens that were the spare parts aircraft to keep the rest flyable.
In WW2, we had 110 Army generals (USAF and USA combined ) and four four-star admirals.
Not let’s talk about why the Democrats are trying so hard to hamstring Pete from changing the Military back to a fighting force????
My sources are co-pilot and personal experience. I spent 12 years in the USAF AD Loading bombs, conventional, nuclear, missiles, etc., and 8 years flying Med Evac in the USAF Reserve. I also worked 19 years at Pan Am Airlines as an electrician, fixing 747s Dc8s cargo, and 5 years as an emergency worker and department head at NENA Health Center Emergency Department.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.