Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Brian Collamore]: And good afternoon, folks. With due apologies to my voice, I'm recovering from the flu and a cold, not contagious, but I'm in the late stages. I'm senator Brian Collum, one representative of Rutland District and chair of the senate government operations committee. I'd like to have the rest of my committee introduce themselves.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky]: Senator Tanya Vijovsky. I represent the Chittenden Central District, and I'm vice chair of the senate government operations committee.

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: Allison Clarkson, one of the three senators for the Windsor District, and I serve as chair of senate economic development housing and general affairs, and I am lucky enough to also serve on this committee. To you, who?

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Senator John Rawley, Warleeds District.

[Senator Becca White]: Senator Becca White and Windsor County District.

[Senator Brian Collamore]: And I can have Matt do the same on the other side.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: The record, representative Matt Birong. I chair House Government Operations and Military Affairs. I represent the Addison III District, which is Northwest Addison County.

[Representative Lisa Hango]: Hi, I'm Representative Lisa Hango. I'm the vice chair of this committee. I represent Franklin V, and I'm also a co chair of the Vermont National Guard and Veterans Affairs Caucus.

[Representative Robert Hooper]: Robert Hooper, North End Burlington, Chittenden 18.

[Representative Chea Waters Evans]: Hi, I'm Chea Waters Evans. I'm ranking member of the House Government Operations Military Affairs Committee. I represent Charlotte and part of Hinesburg.

[Representative Philip Jay Hooper]: Jay Hooper, Brookfield, Braintree, Randolph, Grand Isle, and Roxburgh. Representative Kate Nugent, part of South Burlington, and I'm a government operations committee.

[Representative Michael Morgan]: Michael Morgan, just the guy on the government operations committee in the House, and I represent all of Grand Isle County, which is Albert, North Hero, Isle Of Mont, Grand Isle, South Arrow, the Western Corner of Milton where I reside.

[Representative Sandra "Sandy" Pinsonault]: Representative Sandy Pinsonault, I represent Bennington Rutland, which is Doris, Matthew Tabor, Peru, and Lamoille.

[Major General Gregory C. Knight]: Representatives VL Coffin. I represent Windsor County District 2, which is Cavendish Weather's Field in Baltimore on the House Government Operations.

[Representative Lucy Boyden]: Hi, I'm the representative Lucy Boyden, I represent 103, Cambridge Of Montevill, and I'm a third of House of Operations and Military Affairs Committee. Rutland Mary-Katherine Stone, Burlington, and I'm another one of the co chairs of Vermont National Guard of Military Affairs.

[Senator Brian Collamore]: On behalf of both committees, I want to thank everybody that's in the military here that is represented, especially our two candidates who we will vote for on February 19 in a joint assembly. We are here today to give both of the candidates a chance to let members of both committees know about their qualifications. Most of you that have paid attention, and this is my twelfth year in the senate, realize Vermont is the only state in The United States that elects its adjutant general. This unique, method as a result of the postwar of 1812, it was a subsequent changes to state law. It wasn't always that way in Vermont. Originally, the governor did appoint the adjutant general, but following the war of eighteen twelve, certain changes happened. And unlike all the other 49 states, we choose to be different and elect our adjutant general. So thank you very much for attending. I wanna recognize Sophie Sedatney, will give us a little bit of, history about the position. I know representative Tom Stevens is here to present his view, and he's been through this process, I think, three other times. And, certainly, major general Gregory Knight, who will speak before the candidates speak as well. So I'm happy to be here, and I'll turn things back to, the co chair, Matthew Birong.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Thank you very much, Senator. And before we get going with counsel, I just wanted to ask a little bit of housekeeping with members. When asking questions, try to be succinct with your questions. Try to avoid commentary and or editorializing the question itself. We'll try to get as many questions in as possible for the candidates. So that is just a request from Senator Callamore and I. And with that, counsel, you've prepared some slides and information for us.

[Sophie Sedatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Good afternoon. I'm Sophie Sedatling with the Office of Legislative Council. I know representative Stevens has to be out of here by by 01:30, so I'm going to move as quickly as I can. You have the materials too, so I'm not planning on going through. Okay, so just quickly I'm going provide an overview of the National Guard, the condition of the modern National Guard, the duty statuses of the National Guard, just emphasizing the dual mission that the National Guard has where they serve both Vermont and The United States, and then the election that's coming up. And so just very quickly, again, National Guard provides a unique and essential element of the US military. There are over 400,000 men and women currently serving. It all began with three militias founded in 1636 in Massachusetts as a citizen force, and those units are the oldest units in US military history. Today's National Guard members hold civilian jobs, attend college while maintaining their military training part time, and then obligations of drills one weekend a month and two weeks annually. And again, it exists as both the state and the federal force per The United States Constitution, and serves at the direction of the state governors until the US President orders the guard into active federal service either at home or abroad. And again, violence involved over four hundred years fighting millennial battles, revolutionary war which I omitted apologies in the background but you know there a few global wars and then combat operations again in the last century And again the National Guard has been activated on US soil in numerous times. I'm just going to click through those. Just examples of the kinds of things that the National Guard has been asked to do. Here's a quick bit of the history and again these are just some of the there have been many, many acts but these were the ones that to me seem the key acts that I thought it'd be helpful to put some background on So the Militia Act of 1903 and that created what would become the modern National Guard today from the militia and partly because all the militias were evolving in very different ways so it's to start bringing some uniformity and it codified the circumstances under which the guard could be federalised and provided federal funds to help pay for equipment and training. And then the intent of the Militator Act was to achieve the same training, education and readiness requirements as active duty units. After the sinking of Lusitania, the National Defence Act of 1916 was passed and the National Guard became the official name for all the different militias. And again, the National Defence Act again helped modernise the national guard by replacing and standardising training, providing more federal funding and inspections, requiring fitness and eligibility tests. It created the Reserve Office Training Team, codified the dual state and federal mission, and required new guard members to swear as agents to both The United States constitution and their home state constitution. And then in 1933, with the National Defence Act amendments, National Guard came to be considered as a compromise in the armies of times. The benefit of that was, again, the members of the guard had two military statuses, so one in their home state National Guard and then one in the National Guard of the United States, and that would then enhance the ability for National Guard units

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky]: to be

[Sophie Sedatny (Legislative Counsel)]: deployed overseas in regards to fuel. So just briefly the duty status of the National Guard, there are three of them. I'm just going to run through those quickly but again I want to emphasise this dual mission that the National Guard has and it's to support the defendant and the of Vermont. These are the three National Guard duty statuses when they're under state acts of duty, they're under the command and control of the governor. Title 32 is elected to The United States, but this is a vibrant niche, where they're still under the control of the governor and the adjutant general, but they can be assigned elsewhere in The United States and then paid for, they receive unpaid benefits from the federal government, and they can be engaged in domestic law enforcement they're still under the authority of the governor. And again, there's some examples at the bottom of the kinds of status that the National Guard's been called into. Title 10 of The United States COVID-nineteen will talk about the National Guard being federalised. Again, then you're after the command of the president and then any competent commander. They can be assigned anywhere in the world. They're also paid through the federal government. They're not permitted to engage in domestic law enforcement unless there's a specific exception allowing that, and again that's the Folicy Comitist Act which we'll touch on briefly in a moment. So just a quick cap on state acts of duty. So as far as here in Vermont the National Guard can be called out for state active duty by the governor as the commander in chief. If the governor is away then the lieutenant governor can call out the National Guard and if both of them are away then the adjutant general can pull them out. This is from the Vermont state statute of the examples of the times that the Vermont National Guard can be called out. In cases of riot, rebellion, insurrection within the state, in the case of great opposition for the service of legal process, civil or criminal, in the case of engaging in the danger of invasion, disaster or an emergency proclaimed by the governor. And that hybrid status, again remain under the authority of the governor but the duty is federally funded and regulated. This covers training, it also covers civil support which is disaster relief, they allow them as consent to deployment and under state control so they can participate in civilian law enforcement activities. Again, under that status, the Policy Prompt Act doesn't apply. That act essentially prevents federal law enforcement, federal military, from participating in civilian law enforcement unless there's a specific provision for that under federal law or under the constitution. So federalization under Title 10, these are examples of when a guard can be called up from voluntary ordered active duty, partial mobilization, or presidential selected reserve pull up. Those are all under Title 10 of the United States Code. And then this is 10 USC 12,406, so this is something that's been used most recently. So this is an example of when the President can pull up the National Guard if The US has invaded or in danger of invading a foreign patient, perhaps a rebellion or danger of a rebellion, or the president is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of The United States. I've underlined that phrase with the regular forces. This was the subject of the recent Supreme Court decision that came out. It was on the emergency docket of the Supreme Court, but this was the language that was at issue with regards to the National Guard being deployed to Chicago. In the case of Illinois versus Trump, the district court, the first level of the federal court system, had imposed a temporary restraining order preventing the National Guard from being deployed in Chicago. The Seventh Circuit, in terms of the relevant part of what the district court had done, maintained that stay and announced an appeal to the US Supreme Court. And the US Supreme Court had asked for additional briefing around what's this word with the regular forces mean because that was an ambiguous term and it hadn't really been clearly defined. And the parties briefed it and Justice Barrett with the Supreme Court issued, and again it was an emergency decision, so it's short, but essentially held that with the regular forces means the regular United States military forces, and found that the president had not made the showing in that particular case to justify sending the guard in. So that's of interest of what's currently going on at the federal level. And then orders under 12,406 are issued through the governors of the states or the commanding general of the DC National Guard. Again, I would just flag that the National Guard was also deployed in California and that particular order did not go through the governor but went through the head of the National Guard in California and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that that was sufficient. So again a lot of the laws relating to the National Guard right now are in some kind of flux and we can anticipate these issues are going to get litigated moving forward. Title 10 also contains the Insurrection Act. Historically, what's happened is historically, presidents would typically use 10 USC 12,406 to corral up the units of the National Guard and then they would be deployed pursuant to the Insurrection Act. That's not what happened since recently with the deployments, but historically that's the mechanism that has been used. So these are the under the Insurrection Act, so federal aid for state government. So if there's an insurrection in any state and the the request is made by the state's legislature or their governor for national guard assistance to enforce federal authority under Section two fifty two and Section two fifty three, there's interference with state and federal law. So when we went through some of those examples of where the National Guard's being deployed on US soil, some of those like desegregation of schools between the 1960s, things like that, that's when they begin to have a valid and sensible permission of the government because the state authorities were opposing implementation of federal law. Just briefly on the funding of the National Guard. So obviously, the federal government has increasingly supported the National Guard. I was not able to find accurate estimates. I'm sure the National Guard can information with you on that. But some of the estimates I saw were between like 85% to 95%. So it's a significant investment from the federal level into the state National Guard. And again, federal funds cover salaries, benefits, training, equipment, upkeep, daily operational costs, aircraft, vehicles, construction. And then states cover the costs for specific state defined emissions, equipment and some benefits but again often when we think in Vermont we think of tropical storm Irene for example, federal support can often come back help cover the cost of these disasters as well. So turning to the Vermont National Guard, It's brief that the role of the General Assembly is meant to hold. The General Assembly elects the Addison General biennially, receives an annual report on complaints of sexual assault and harassment in the National Guard, provides a death benefit of $50,000 for active duty members of the Guard, and then appropriations as well to support the National Guard. The Governor serves as the Commander in Chief and has significant control over the organisational structure of the National Guard and approves the adjutant general's appointment to high level officers and ensures that the National Guard conforms to federal regulations and any system of drill discipline administration and instruction prescribed in US armed forces. Again, that makes sure that the Vermont National Guard is ready to play its role alongside US Armed Forces and also approves the creation and design of metals. The Adjunct General is the demanding officer of the Vermont Army and Air National Guard as well as Stealth Key Department and all military components of the state. The Adjutant General issues signs and transmits orders of the governor in executing the laws of Vermont in The United States and adopts all necessary rules for the government of the Vermont National Guard as well as maintaining administrative files and war records. This is an overview of the organizational chart of the Vermont National Guard. So again, with the governor as the commander in chief, the adjutant general beneath him, and then the areas that are covered by And then reviewing the reporting lines for The United States airports and the United States Army. As Juan mentioned, every state in The US territory has budgets in general and most of them are, well all of them except for Vermont are selected by the state's governor and Vermont's the only state that elects general through death by the legislature. This is done on a two year basis and the adjutant general is passed the rank of a major general within the state. The qualifications are listed in statute. To be eligible for election, the individual has to obtain the rank of colonel or above, be a current member of the US Army, the US Air Force, Army Reserve, US Air Force Reserve, Army Army National Guard or the Air National Guard, be a graduate of a senior service college and be eligible for federal recognition. And then the general is elected in the second year of the Air League and this is the exact language at 10:00 and thirty minutes on the seventh Thursday. So this year, that election will fall on Thursday, 02/19/2026.

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: Any questions for the council?

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Seeing none.

[Major General Gregory C. Knight]: Thank you.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky]: That was

[Representative Matthew Birong]: a good primer. Thank you so much. Go ahead, Stevens. Is he a representative? Thank you for joining us.

[Representative Tom Stevens]: For inviting me. I just wanted to representative Tom Stevens from Waterbury representing the Washington Chittenden District, which is the Waterbury Volk and Huntington's 4. I was invited by the chair here basically to give you perhaps a legislator speak some of the things that have happened in the last, at least through the time I've been involved in the state house. I served on the general housing and military affairs committee for many years and a lot of the changes that aren't reflected as changes but that are in statute right now have happened over the last fifteen years and I just wanted to give you a short background kind of flesh out a little bit of what the statute that Sophie did such good a job of putting into place. Would keep that as your I would keep that as a very solid background when you're asked. The election of the adjutant general to me was first, I first experienced it after General Dube retired, and it was the first time that it came across our desk as, oh, you have to help run the election of the adjutant general, which seemed very bizarre because I think everybody's in the profession was that he or she was appointed, but that's not the case. There were elections previous since 1812 or so, and some of them were very contentious. You remember when General Randle was elected, that was a very difficult election, that general dubious election seemed to be very, very much simpler at the time, but when he retired, it was my first introduction to the fact that there were people in uniform campaigning outside of the cafeteria asking to meet you, as as if they were, us knocking on doors, except they were waiting outside the bathrooms as lobbyists do, and it was very off putting and awkward to me. And on the committee, as I as I, I don't I while my father may have served in the CBs the Korean War, I don't really consider myself a military child, so so the notion of the fact that somebody in uniform is asking to shake my hand and asking for their vote seemed to be different, and at the time we were not the only state, there was one other state that has stopped electing their adjutant general, and so being on the committee, I invested my time as you will be doing on finding out what the process is, what were pluses and minuses, what is this, Why are why was Vermont the only state left to elect an adjutant general? Is this some quirky Vermont thing that we love to see in Vermont, or was it kind of like an appendix that needed to be changed in order to join in with the 49 other states and territories that appoint and we that started probably ten years of talking about what this role that we have as legislators, as the general assembly is and should be. First we discussed over the time there was a circumstance in the election, the first election that I experienced, where one of the candidates was accused of sexual assault and or of covering up sexual assault, and the victim, the survivor came to the Speaker of the House and said, what are you going to do about this? And the Speaker of the House and the chair of the committee met, and it was there was nothing that we could do even though this was our election. The oddity of an election of the adjutant general is that we elect that person, but once that person is elected, we don't have oversight or accountability of their actions that falls to the commander in chief, in our case, governor. So again, awkward situation that we have to try to fit into the way that we think about this election, and we did for many years. We contemplated getting rid of this. The House passed certain differences in the law that may have, under certain circumstances, taken away our right to vote in order for the governor to appoint. At the time, civilians could run for the adjutant general's position, and that goes back to the early nineteenth century. But that also speaks to the role that the National Guard had previous to the global war on terror, and the global war on terror following by twenty years or so the Iraqi invasion and freedom conflict.

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: The guard got really professionalized,

[Representative Tom Stevens]: and the federal government was relying on the guard for things that they never had really relied on before, so there was a certain feeling that this wasn't just we couldn't if you weren't a military family, you could say, oh, we can war it, you could downplay or denigrate the service and not really treat it sufficiently, but with the advent or the evolution to the professional needed in order to serve in the federal under their federal orders overseas, it became clear to us that this was a process that we couldn't ignore and I wanted to lift it during our time on my time on general was to lift this election up to the point where people understood it's not gonna be on the front burner for most legislators even during the the election, but certainly after when they don't have to think about it every day as as your committees do. And so how could we protect this process or improve this process in a way that allowed the guard to do their business with the professionalism and the dignity that we expect. And so over time, we contemplated a bunch of different changes, we ended up taking away the right of citizens to run for this position, and that and increased and codified most or all of the recommendations that are in the statute that you see today about what they need to what a candidate needs to have in order to run for election here. You'll notice that the state gives rank of major general that there's a difference in federal ranks and state ranks and concerns that were expressed, especially by the guard, is that if you elected a civilian to be the adjutant general of the state guard, when they went to DC to meet with their peers, their peers were not peers at all because they held federal offices, which are things that are earned over time and through your accomplishments. And the feeling was that a civilian, which has never happened, but a civilian adjutant general would be at great disservice to the Vermont National Guard in terms of whether that's might be and agree with it or not. As you can see, the equipment that's been provided for this National Guard doesn't come just because it doesn't, it doesn't, it didn't come just through political connections, it came because this guard is really well regarded, it's really well trained, and I think over the last fifteen years has really been shaping a professional unit where our general expectations are of excellence, and that they, and because we may hear from our constituents whether or not the guard is doing a good job or not, we have a responsibility to know that and to be able to respond in ways that support the guard as it's constructed today. It doesn't, you don't have to agree with everything, but our role as electors is that we are the adjutant general's constituents up in the old time of Cambridge, and from them they are move on to do their job in conjunction with the governor's office and with the federal government. Changes happen slowly. There were always, as with any legislation, was always different opinions. The House would pass a version of a law, Senate wouldn't follow-up, vice versa. There were always differences of opinion, and then finally the last piece that we were finally able to get across in conjunction with the Senate was moving this election to the second year of the biennium. And I think it's important just to know that history. If you were elected, when you were elected, and you are sworn in in January, previous to this election, that election was held seven weeks after you came into office. So you barely had your feet wet as a committee member, you barely knew where the bathrooms were, you barely knew what the differences between advocates and lobbyists were, and so when you saw somebody in the uniform asking to shake your hand, you had no, generally no idea of what an election for an adjutant in general meant and so, and I can't underscore the amount of time it took to get to this point to get to understand that you as legislators are, if you are new, if this is your first term, you are in a better place than you were a year ago to even hear the information that you're going to hear from the candidates and from us and understanding the importance of this election. You would come into this room, hear from everybody and just go, don't get it. There are reasons to feel that way, but that's mostly because this is a unique circumstance that no one else in the country has the privilege to do. And so I just wanted to share some of that with you to just to understand that the process, again, it may not be perfect. There's still questions about why, but I can say that based on the recent experience and in recent by I mean, over the last several years, whether it's domestic or international needs from the natural guard, whether it was some of the stuff that's happened over the last year, whether it's about being called down on short notice down to down south. The feeling is that we are treating our National Guard as legislators a lot differently and for the best reasons that we can have, which is to know that to know them better than any other state can know them. And that doesn't mean that, in my experience with the adjutant general, who's also a constituent of mine, that if I run into him and told you he's in Huntington on a Saturday morning, that people lay into each other on what we feel things are going on. And I don't think there's any other legislator house member in the country who would have had that privilege. And that's the Vermont piece that I appreciate more than anything else. And so my charge to you as you have now taken on educating our peers is to simply treat this with the respect, treat this process with the respect it deserves, and you will get, find a candidate to vote for that deserves that same respect. And again, it's a privilege for all of us to have that energy, in no means is it simply another thing to go along, to get along. You have your opinions, you have your feelings, you have your reasons to support the Guard and to support the Guard members as we have in the past. And I think that this is an important process for it to continue.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: No, thank you very much, representative. I really appreciate that. You spent a lot of time in this jurisdiction, many of these cycles. I and Representative Hango served in your committee when we did this updates on the qualifications. Framing that the way you did was very helpful for us and anyone else who might be reviewing this later. So thank you.

[Representative Tom Stevens]: And know that you make a difference. Mean, members of the committee who, more than ten years ago, were involved with developing a sexual assault report and to make it and I'm not going to say it was smooth. I'm not going to say that the was the guard came along, but it was also something that the adjutant generals who were in charge of that wanted to come along, and that was because of the connections that we were able to make here in this building. And I think the guard, in the end, the guard can do a better job because you're electing the adjutant generals. If the adjutant general were appointed like 50 plus others that were appointed, the instability that can happen because someone could get fired because of someone's move can't happen here. Removing the adjutant general with an elected official is incredibly difficult and it allows certain, it's not independence, but it allows a certain freedom of the general to do his business in conjunction with the governor and in conjunction without having to worry about those moves. Yes. Feel like we've seen this in other states. Understood.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Any questions from members, representative Stevens? Senator?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky]: I have a question that might be for representative Stevens, but it might also be for legislative counsel, and it's just based on what you just said. Would the removal of the abstinent general be through the same impeachment process as any other elected official if, for some reason, we were to decide that that was necessary?

[Representative Tom Stevens]: I would defer, my memory of when we discussed this, is

[Colonel Roger Ziegler]: yes, but really difficult to do so, I

[Representative Tom Stevens]: mean extraordinarily difficult to do so, but I think it doesn't fall under specifically this statute, it would fall under other statutes related to elected officials, but I'm gonna defer it to let you know the closest answer to truth is. But

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky]: I thought it might be for counsel, but you surprise me sometimes with what you know. We

[Representative Tom Stevens]: we had to consider it when we were discussing. It it came up in conversation, and and the basic idea is regardless, it's difficult.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky]: I I think impeachment is difficult. I think the last time we we did one of those was more than a hundred years ago. Any

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: other hands? Counsel, did you have a response to that?

[Sophie Sedatny (Legislative Counsel)]: I would just echo what representative said. There isn't anything specifically in the statutes relating to the adjectives in general that talk about that. So I assume you would also be looking at other statutes and then trying to fit this in around what that would look like.

[Representative Tom Stevens]: Having the privilege of being an elected official removes you from the emotional charge of firing and firing, again, which over the years became so clear and important for this role in this state. That's why we're voting now.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Any other hands from Richardson or Stevens?

[Senator Brian Collamore]: Thanks, Tom.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Yeah. Thank you so much. On the agenda, we're gonna invite up major general Gregory Knight, the current adjutant general. How are you, sir?

[Major General Gregory C. Knight]: If that's any better, I'm the beanie.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: All right. There's a soft lead in.

[Major General Gregory C. Knight]: Thank you so much for the opportunity. I just had a quick question. Sophie, thank you. Wonderful job. You took a third of what

[Representative Tom Stevens]: I was going to talk about away.

[Major General Gregory C. Knight]: I just had a question. Where are you from, RG?

[Sophie Sedatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Sure, England.

[Representative Tom Stevens]: Yeah, because I saw

[Major General Gregory C. Knight]: the reference to colonial war. Sorry. Good afternoon to the joint session. I thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. Today we'll mostly stick with the script. I sincerely appreciate all of you for making time. But with a few topics to address with you today, we'll try to be succinct yet pithy and make sure we have enough time for our two adjutant general candidates. First and foremost, as I reflect on the end of my tenure as the adjutant general, when I approach my retirement in the United States military, I'd like

[Representative Tom Stevens]: to offer my sincerest thanks

[Major General Gregory C. Knight]: to my legislative colleagues, past and present, the unique honor and privilege of serving as Vermont's adjutant general. I work diligently on behalf of our soldiers, our airmen, and Vermonters to do what I said I would do. I can tell you, some of you may be familiar with, there have been times in this position when I would say I just can't believe I get paid to do this job. And there's been times where I would think you've been paying me enough to do this job. But the good far outweighs the bad. Seen a lot of changes in our National Guard in the past seven years. When I began my tenure, we did have a few challenges to overcome. Starting with the National Guard Bureau Organizational Assessment. In 2019, in the past seven years, we've made great strides, changing not only our organizational climate, but also our culture. We've fixed a lot of things, but our work never ends when it comes to organizational improvement. We've changed our relationship with the legislature, the congressional delegation, our communities, our media partners and our employers. We've helped Vermont with workforce development through our prime initiative, reached out to underrepresented populations to allow them to serve and address sexual harassment and sexual assault through a pragmatic disciplined approach, focusing on victim support and accountability for perpetrators. We've embarked on an expansive education campaign to help everyone understand who their guard is and what we do. We've worked with all interested agencies to address the critical shortfalls in mental health providers and to establish suicide prevention measures for our military and veterans. Vermont National Guard has grown our state partnerships to three, now inclusive of Austria, North Macedonia, and Senegal, and have moved these strong relationships beyond the traditional military to military construct. Now all of this is incredibly positive, and a trajectory that should continue. The bar is set, and I expect you to make sure it remains so. I hope you can see what I see. The unending professionalism, expertise, loyalty and mission focus of our soldiers, our airmen and their families. Despite the inherent stress and challenges that come with service in our guard, time away from home and work, drill weekends and annual training periods, attending military education courses, missing birthdays, anniversaries and significant life events, like the birth of a child, dealing with short homeland, short notice homeland mission to support Vermont mobilizing for federal deployment in some of the most contested areas of the world for months, or even a year at a time. The members of your National Guard stepped forward and said, I will serve. That speaks volumes about their character and their dedication to their communities, their state and their nation. The Vermont National Guard is simply outstanding. I hope we can find more like them, keep our guard strong. We've also done a lot together. One of the things I enjoyed the most was coming to the State House and working with our legislators. It was rewarding as it allowed me to share the guard story and help facilitate legislation that provides great benefit to our guard, our veterans, and their families. Made though at this juncture, made building a sustaining positive relationship with our legislature central theme in my time in office. Historically, the Vermont National Guard relationship with our legislature was perhaps not as robust as it could have been. We didn't have a clear venue, short of committee testimony or specific requests for legislation to routinely communicate with our legislators. So first, I began sending six month updates to our governor, our legislature, our congressional delegation, and to our force. I felt it was my obligation. It's important for all of our centers of influence to know what their guard is doing. Remarkable story to share, and I'm glad to be able to do so. But I think perhaps the smartest thing I could have done was to ask for legislative caucus. In the time since that request, following the establishment of the Vermont National Guard and Veterans Caucus, our guard and veterans had a voice, a direct line of consistent communication and transparency with our legislators, irrespective political alignment or party affiliation. What I could not have foreseen were the collegiality, curiosity, advocacy and friendships that have resulted. Through our caucus, we've together passed several legislative initiatives into law that directly benefit our guard, veterans, survivor beneficiaries, and our families. Truly grateful for our work together, certainly on legislation. I'm again honored to have had this opportunity to serve our communities, our state, and our nation. So what I would like to do is provide a very quick update. As you know, we're an in demand force for Vermont National Guard. As representative Stevens noted, is incredibly professional. Yesterday, we had a send off ceremony for about 160 members of the eighty sixth Brigade and the one hundred and seventy second Cavalry Regiment from our guard. They are traveling to Yukon for about eleven months, where they will be on the joint military training group for Ukraine, helping to train new members of the Ukrainian military. I cannot think of a better unit, a unit better suited to take on this mission. So we look forward to the great work that they're going to do. And as you know, the one hundred and fifty eight fighter wing received a short notice deployment. I would note that that is the third time that our international government called for a light mission. It happened in 2016 when we had f sixteens. It happened again in 2023 to counter Russian aggression with our f 35. Both of those missions, our units were up and doing the mission in less than thirty days. Most recent one, the unit was ready and deployed in eleven days. I would argue that there is no other organization across the enterprise that could do that. I would also tell you they could have called, Robert Hooper could have called, SouthCom could have called a lot of other units. They asked for us by name. That to me speaks volumes again about the professionalism, the expertise, certainly the work ethic of our one hundred and fifty eighth Fighter Wing. As As I close my testimony, our legislature has a very important decision facing the election of the next adjutant. Vermont has unique process, as Representative Stevens noted, which, and I might be biased at this juncture, should be the envy of all who believe in our foundational principles of the civilian led military, subordinate to constitutional law, part of the bedrock, aligning military power with democratic principles and the rule of law. With my transition on 03/01/2026, I'm working on the completion of a continuity binder, with the intent of providing a handrail for the next adjutant general. To read ahead on the expectations of the job, relationships with the governor, legislature, congressional delegation, our media partners, public affairs, operations at the national and international level, working with the Adjutant General and other professional associations and veteran organizations, managing a $200,000,000 budget and upending the state partnership and other light topics, a lot of which is transparent to most. You have a good problem. Two outstanding candidates who bring a wealth of experience and professionalism to the position of Adjutant General. At this juncture, I don't believe it would be appropriate for me to endorse a candidate. It's their interview, it's their argument to make. Our process unique in The United States can and should be collegial. While unusual when compared to other states, the electorate process provides our guard members with a voice through their legislators. This process belongs to you. You're not familiar with our National Guard, I ask you to learn more about us. This is an important decision. I also ask you to consider carefully, listen to the candidates, and then make your decision. I thank you again for the honor and privilege of serving as the Vermont Adjutant General. I wish all of you the very best. Thank you, Chairs. And if I could have just one quick alibi in support of Sophie's briefing. If you haven't checked your mailbox, you will find what I call the placemat. I keep this ready. I've been doing this for a few days. I still refer to this just about daily. And this news to this most version, traffic depicting, authorities, for how long, how many, and then under what conditions that mobilization has. Look at the digital version of this as well, offsides the print, but that is my go to.

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: I

[Major General Gregory C. Knight]: lean on it a lot. And it does drive something that this body can impact, but I certainly, if I had my, one of my top three things I would like to see Congress deal with is duty status reform. These are only a part of the mobilization statuses that the National Guard can be in. It is entirely too complex. It didn't happen overnight, as Sophie briefed. We need to fix this. Entirely too complex, too many disparities and benefits, paying benefits, retirement benefits, when you have medical care, when you don't, who has the authority, who doesn't. I think there's a way to fix that. There have been numerous studies on this. That will be one of my final messages to our congressional delegation to please get this back on the front burner and find some relief for the National Guard so we're not always in the middle of the fray. So thank you again.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: I appreciate that, General. Well, I just wanna see if we have any questions before we move on. I know you're trying to. Any questions for General Knight before we move on to the candidate conversation? What's up? Oh,

[Representative Michael Morgan]: yes. Just a commentary. I served with General Knight for many years, both in the Air Guard and then jointly, and as he transitioned to the army guard many years ago. But it always been a sheer pleasure to serve alongside him. He rose, obviously, greater rank than I ever did, but was well deserved, and I think he did yeoman's work in the position, and I thank him for that service.

[Major General Gregory C. Knight]: Thank you, sir.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: I guess I'll just take a moment to second that it. Working with you, the entire legislative tenure that I've served, has been nothing short of a pleasure. And it's been wonderful working with you as a colleague, but also becoming friends has meant a lot. So thank you, General.

[Major General Gregory C. Knight]: Thank you, sir.

[Representative Kate Nugent]: You're here.

[Representative Tom Stevens]: It's been a pleasure.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: All right. And with that, moving on to the stars of the show. We are on to the candidate portion, and we decided to just go to traditional rank format here. So we're going to start off with Brigadier General Hank Carter. So if you could join us at the table, sir. And just providing you an opportunity to make a statement. Make your case, and then we'll open things up for a Q and A with the members.

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: Sounds fair. Thank you very much for the opportunity. For the record, my name is Brigadier General Henry Carter, Jr, and it is an honor to be here with you, I believe I have ten minutes, is that right?

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Got an ish on it.

[Major General Gregory C. Knight]: Yeah, for both of you.

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: The first thing I want to say is thank you to each and more. We talk a lot about service in the military, and what you all do is obviously service to Vermonters. And there's a lot of Vermonters that pay attention. There's some Vermonters that we're all busy and maybe they don't pay the same level of attention. In the last two years as the deputy, I have an inside look at the work that goes on here and the compromise. I just wanted to say thank you from my lens because it's, we've mentioned small town Vermont, it's nice to be able to call a legislator and know who they are and have them know us. Obviously General Knight's done a great job opening that vehicle of communication. Just thank you for what you do. I come to you here today with a deep sense of passion, passion for service. The same passion I held in a March day in 1989 when I raised my right hand, sworn oath to the Constitution, Constitution of The United States and the Constitution of Vermont. That passion exists today, and if anything, it's greater to support our soldiers and airmen. I've been privileged to serve for thirty six years, I would be privileged to serve another period of time in the next position. A short background, I believe you all have hopefully electronic bios for both my military career and then my deputy adjunct job. I come from a family service. My father was a World War II aviator, naval aviator. Three of his brothers served also during World War II, truly part of the greatest generation. My grandfather served in World War I as the US Army combat engineer on horse. Unfortunately, I never got to know him, he had the year before I was born, but I've heard family stories. I'm very interested in service of all kind, but I'm proud to come from a family of service. I knew what I wanted to do at age 10. I wanted to serve in a military capacity if I could, and I was also really interested in aviation, so I wanted to fly. Through schooling, I came up to UVM and I knew what I needed to do to try to become part of the military. College education is required to be an officer, and I had a great experience in University of Vermont. At that time, I got to know some of the women and men of the Vermont National Guard. Some

[Representative Robert Hooper]: of

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: them were members and also students at UVM, and then I also saw the Vermont Air National Guard in action with the F-4s that would fly off campus. So I was already interested in service, and now my service interest was focused to the National Guard. After graduation from UVM, I became a civilian pilot first. So I was a flight instructor and charter pilot right here in Burlington International Airport, And I know there's a lot of teachers in this body and boy do you learn a lot from being a teacher. That was certainly the case for me. I applied to the Vermont Air National Guard to be commissioned and to go to United States Air Force pilot training. I was lucky enough to be selected. But followed was two years of active duty training outside of Vermont and then I returned and really achieving the dream of a lifetime. I was able to fly the F-sixteen for eighteen years, multiple combat deployments. I worked alongside some of the finest enlisted and officer personnel and civilians. I was able to diversify my career a little bit by being asked to apply to lead our information operations squadron, which is now called the cyber operations squadron. That was the time I was able to really work for the first time, shoulder to shoulder with our Vermont Army Guard. The location was a joint location down on the campus of Norwich University. So you had Army Guard, information ops and cyber professionals working hand in hand with Air Guard. And that's when I found out, and I don't tell this gentleman very often that the Army Guard is just as good as the Army. I then came up to Camp Johnson for staff assignments, got to work for General Dubey when he was acting General, General Cray, and then on to General Knight. Before that, though, I went back to the fighter wing. I got to serve and and Brett Morgan, Colonel retired Morgan, and I worked together for many years, but really by a position that figure out what the supporters do, support network. So I had been a pilot, but I hadn't worked directly in what's called the mission support group. Well, I was now the commander. And I realized that a lot of what we could do, it did not happen without supply, without the calm cyber professionals, without administrators. So it was another way to educate me to become hopefully a better leader. And then luckily, I was selected for my full time position was the deputy commander of the fighter wing, and we got the base ready for the current mission with F-thirty five. In 2020, Major General Knight asked me if I would be his assistant adjutant general air commander of the Air Guard. And I was honored to have that as an opportunity. And of course I said, yes, he had other folks to look at, but I had that opportunity. I was the Assistant Adjutant General Air Commander of the Air Guard, It's complicated positions, but for over two and a half years in that seat, and then selected for my current position as Deputy Adjunct General. I believe what distinguishes me is the breadth of my career. I'm uniquely qualified to serve in a potential position as adjutant. I also had a great opportunity to work with the professionals at the headquarters level, the Army Guard as well. And just so you all know, Colonel Ziegler is a colleague and he is a friend and we will always be on the same team. We're on the same team now and we will be on the same team on February 20. And that's the beauty of this, but it is a unique opportunity for us to tell you why we think we will do a good job of testing each other. From a domestic response, I was involved in the flood response of July 2324, pandemic response, the transition to the f 35, short notice of deployments that general Knight has mentioned. All of those proving that we have incredibly capable women and men in both of our services. Your Vermont Army and Air National Guard are truly simply the best in The United States Of America, and that's why often they are called. We have a lot of tremendous guard units and all of us in uniform have worked sometimes in other states or with other airmen and soldiers, but there are none better. As a Deputy Adjutant General, I've been able to learn a little bit more about the State House and all the work you do. And as we've mentioned through the National Guard and Veterans Caucus, there's open communication now, and really an elevated level of discourse and back and forth than there was earlier in my career, and that's a good thing. One of the priorities I will have is veterans issues. The building across the street, Office of Veterans Affairs, holds under the Adjutant General, and I have a big piece of it as the deputy now. We've done good work for our veterans, and we need to constantly keep our eye on the ball to make sure that they have what they need, and we get the resources both federally and from the state when we can. The State House has been an incredible partner in terms of the legislators, as you all know, with Vermont National Guard tuition benefit program. Our soldiers and airmen have the opportunity to serve and get educated at the same time, and then hopefully go off and do things, other great things or stay in the guard, which we've always liked, but debt free and for that, thank you. My priorities, if I have the opportunity to honor to serve in this position, They are strength, readiness, resilience and respect. Strength, readiness, resilience and respect. What do I mean by that? You've heard about our recruiting and retention challenges. It's really the first, the recruiting challenges, and we have workforce development challenges in Vermont. General Knight and staff has already partnered with this body and other agencies to do the best we can. I want to continue that, and I think we can do more. Our retention rates are really quite good and amongst the top of the nation. That's because when soldiers and airmen join the Vermont Army and Air National Guard, they find a culture, while sometimes not perfect, but enough that they will cross state lines to stay in an argument. So they may have their jobs worked to move to other states, but then they stay with us. Readiness, we need to be ready all the time for federal call up and state missions. And I think all of us here can take a testament to during the pandemic, our longest state active duty, we had a 100 soldiers and airmen on duty for almost three years helping arbormoners, helping the states with logistics. I will continue to keep my eye on the ball and make sure that our soldiers and airmen have the resources they need to do their job. Resilience. It's a complicated world out there for all of us. We have a lot of programs for guardsmen and women now that we didn't have before, but they have more complicated lives than I did as a lieutenant. We all know that. How do we make sure that they're both resilient and we have resources that they can use? We have a director of psychological health in the Army and Fair Guard, full time trained social worker. We have a full time Chaplain Court. We decided because normally it's a part time position, traditional guardian. We decided to put it in full time for the folks that could use that resource.

[Senator Brian Collamore]: And then many other, but

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: I look forward to talking with you all in the future about how we're gonna care for our soldiers and Airmen, but equally important to our families. Our families serve alongside their members. Gentlemen, let you all know and you know already that we have soldiers and airmen deployed now. I had the opportunity to be at the deployment ceremony over the guard yesterday for the Army Guard formations about to leave. If you've never done it, we will invite you up. It still strikes a chord when you see the families, the scores of mothers, fathers, significant others, spouses, children there. It is a impactful thing to see. I will do my best to support the families and those members while they are doing their job and then welcome home safe. Finally, and certainly not least important is respect, respect for each other all the time 20 fourseven. I will have a zero tolerance for sexual harassment, sexual assault,

[Senator Brian Collamore]: any kind

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: of discrimination. We've come a long way. General Knight has instituted some things that have really helped us keep the eye on the ball on those things, but there's really nothing more important. And I will continue that focus and it is amongst the top things because if you don't have respect with each other and trust with each other, it becomes corrosive and we cannot do our jobs. So leadership at all levels will have a focus, they have it on now, if I would like to judge in general. That kind of aberrant behavior can just not be condoned. So I look forward to the opportunity of working hand to hand, shoulder to shoulder on workforce development, affordable housing, because those things, we need it in the Guard, we need it in Vermont. There's so much more, but I know I have limited time. I'll close because we've got a good history lesson today. And by Legis Council, thank you for that. I learned a lot there as well. Will you email me that presentation? I'll end with a quote. So in the lead up to the civil war, Abraham Lincoln reached out to then Governor Fairbanks of Vermont. And he asked Governor Fairbanks, what can I expect from Vermont? Governor Fairbanks responded very simply and directly, Vermont will do its full duty and Vermont did. I will do my full duty to elect this position. Thank you. Thank

[Representative Matthew Birong]: you, General. So now I'm gonna open it up to members for questions. So where we go? Speak to me. Senator Pawlowski.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky]: Thank you. Thank you for being here and running us through your priorities and the work that you've done up until now. I'm wondering what you view the role of the adjutant general is in responding to orders that may be unlawful or violate state, federal, or international law or may ultimately constitute a war crime?

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: Yes, ma'am. We are all, as you're probably aware, trained as military members, no matter what branch, about the laws of armed conflict, the rules of war that happens throughout your career. In our system, we have civilian control of the military at the state level and the national level. We go through our training, we take that training very seriously. I can tell you as Adjutant General, I make sure myself and my soldiers and airmen are trained to follow lawful orders. General Knight spoke to it and the Legis Council spoke to it, but wouldn't even, again, it's not easy understanding all the codes and statuses that a guardsmen or women could be mobilized with or used with. We need to make it very clear from a status here. But I would tell you, it's never been murky in my career. I think when We need to make that clear as we can. But as a general, I will follow the letter of the law. That's what I can tell you. We rely on the three branches of federal government to set what that is. It's been spoken about things being adjudicated in the courts. We can't do that, we rely on our system to do that, but I will follow and make sure my leadership and my soldiers and airmen follow the letter.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky]: And if you were to receive an order that, as you're looking at it, was deemed to violate international, state, or federal law, or to be unlawful, what do you do?

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: First, I'd ask for clarity. I would voice my thought that really any soldier, airman, marine, sailor are told to do. If you feel unclear or questioning your orders, you need to go to the superior and say, hey, this doesn't sound quite right. And that will depend on their answer. And if it was still clear to me that I had a question whether it was a lawful legal order, I wouldn't do it and not what I would want to do, but if I was forced to do that, I would resign before I would ask my soldiers and airmen to do things like that or go down that path. There's a lot of discussion in there. I'd rather not resign because I wanna support them from this position, but that's what I would do. Okay. Go

[Representative Tom Stevens]: ahead, senator.

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: Lisa, you had a question, I think.

[Representative Lisa Hango]: Is yours related to senator Biehofsky's question?

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: No, mine is a management question.

[Sophie Sedatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Then I'll

[Representative Lisa Hango]: take a turn if you wanna Yes, tag

[Representative Matthew Birong]: I will defer to Representative Hango and then come back to you soon.

[Sophie Sedatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Thank you.

[Representative Lisa Hango]: In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge facing the Vermont National Guard right now? And what do you propose to do about it?

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: The biggest challenge we have, Hango, continues to be what General Lightnington has spoken about and I spoke about is filling our ranks. We have vacancies on the Army Guard side, we have vacancies on the Air Guard side. Our recruiters are doing a fantastic job in a very tough environment. But vacancies can't respond to a flood, vacancies can't respond to a pandemic. Amongst all the other things I talked about, focus and with the staff will continue to be recruiting. And as I said, our retention rates are really quite good. You always wanna work on that because it takes a long time to train a soldier or airman to be ready to do their job. So if we can keep the people we have, I'll leverage any kind of retention bonuses that the federal government will offer. And, you know, I'm open to good ideas from folks in uniform and out. This body is filled with a lot of experience, 180 individuals that have different experiences. So I will be working in an open book to hear what you all might have to offer, but that will be my focus, is to continue to try to fill the vacancies that we have and keep the people we have to the best of my ability. Thank you.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Senator Clarkson.

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: Thank you. Hank, I'm just curious how you describe your management style. This is a management job, you're managing a huge number of people and their work. I'm just curious how you would describe your management stuff.

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: Yes, ma'am. And call it management and leadership together. One of the great things about the military is we do a lot of professional development. So we get some formal training on what are really proven procedures and how you manage and lead, and obviously in the military, you show up on time and there are a focus on doing your job. My style is collaborative. I like to work with folks at all levels to see how they wanna tackle a problem. And then pure leadership, it may sound trite, but you have to walk the walk. So I want to be the example and have all our leaders in the Army Guard and the Air Guard at officer and senior NCO levels, you've got to lead by example. So I've tried to do that my whole career. I've had the ups and downs. And I also know that sometimes other people have a style that other people might have style that might be more effective. But I've been immense respect and trust for our men and women in uniform. The other thing is, and a lot of our leaders have done this, I wanna hear about what our younger soldiers and amateur, what their ideas are. So I'll be open to feedback. And we do a lot of that in the military. We do a lot of surveys, sometimes you get survey fatigue. But I would say I'm a collaborative leadership style. At the end of the day, I'm very comfortable making a decision. And I want people around me that are gonna challenge what my ideas might may be. But at the end of the day, what we do do very well is when I make an adjust decision as the adjutant general, which I hope is the right decision, that they'll come in line and execute.

[Representative Tom Stevens]: I think we have one here.

[Colonel Roger Ziegler]: Representative, Senator White, sorry, Senator, keep

[Representative Matthew Birong]: the default switch with former members of the House. Apologies.

[Senator Becca White]: Proud former member of the House.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: There you go.

[Senator Becca White]: It's like the army air thing. So one of the ways that I've interacted with the Guard has been in natural disaster response. And you're really the front lines in many ways to that. And I'm wondering if you could just share your perspectives on the climate crisis and climate change, and how you see the National Guard, especially in Vermont, as we continue to see the climate crisis causing extreme

[Representative Kate Nugent]: natural weather events. You see the Guard being a part of that resiliency wise, response wise, I'd like to know your perspectives.

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: Yes, Senator, and a great question. And a few years ago, in our National Defense Strategy at the Pentagon level, they talked about climate change as a national security threat. And unfortunately to too many Vermonters, we've seen our climate evolve and I was serving during tropical storm Irene, and that we've had the most recent floods. And there's a lot to be done and a lot to prepare for. I will say because of need and also it's what we do. And another advantage of being a small state, our Vermont National Guard has incredible relationships with Vermont Emergency Management. We exercise with them, our director of military support currently Lieutenant Colonel Jason Gallopo. He knows everybody by the first name and they know how to get ahold of him and his staff. So we constantly are changing and looking at how we can more quickly and better react. As you know, the guard is always in a supportive role. We're always helping first responders, but we are never the primary, we are coming in as supporting a role. And that's really important because there will be incident commanders and we come in and we have an organization to do that. We use FEMA best practices, but we're training to do that all the time. Actually, Colonel Roger Ziegler, the current J3, that's a big responsibility that he's doing. He's doing a fantastic job. I wish I could tell him to do something different. Are ready if there's natural and mandate disaster to respond. But you bring up a really important point because that's And even more we also have great relationships and I know I don't have unlimited time, but EMAC, which is actually a state function, not a military. So emergency assistance compact. And we use that tropical storm Irene, and General Knight has continued to foster great relations with our other states, which I will continue. Because when the chips are down here in New England, we may need help from somebody else. And that's how we operate. So I hope that answers. Thank you.

[Representative Michael Morgan]: Representative Morgan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. General, what, you've already stated your case for where your career has brought you and so forth, but what would you make the case that you would make the most seamless transition into the role of adjutant general? If to, I guess it would be a little expansion on what you've already taught. Does that make sense?

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: Yes, that's Morgan. Yeah, thank you. No, like I said, I've had the opportunity with, to work with and for General Lake for, you know, now going on six years in two different roles. Then I'll be ready day one, you know, General Knight is very inclusive, inclusive of the SAP on how he's led. And honestly, in this position for years, he said, if somebody wants my job, come talk to me because it's not easy. And he's repeatedly done that. But I'm ready to go into his office. I don't know how quickly he'll move out if I get elected. It's obviously not just the office, but as you know, Michael Morgan, we just have fantastic soldiers and airmen. And as General Knight said, we get to be the face, sometimes the voice, and we have a very solid duty to support them in every way we can. But they are out there doing the JOB. Both our traditional guardsmen had other lives, other jobs, and are full time soldiers and airmen. The women in the National Guard are ready and ready to go on day one. You.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Remember that Pinsonault, thank you.

[Sophie Sedatny (Legislative Counsel)]: How does an Air Guard leader and conversely an Army leader bridge the gap and successfully lead both organizations?

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: Really, really good question. And I talked a little bit about having the ability to work alongside our brethren and Air Guard. The opportunities we do have is actually within the domestic response. And that's one area that because the pandemic was such a long state emergency, we actually didn't get to do what we formally do is exercise with our domestic response at the headquarters level. We were doing it day in and day out, but those are other opportunities that you get to work alongside army and air, you get to know each other. Being a small state, we also, the best we can, the Army Guard is more spread out than the Air Guard. The Air Guard is primarily South Burlington small unit Norwich University. But we try to, through our associations, have social events to interact. But there are opportunities, and I think in my, excuse me, the last five years, there are more army guard soldiers that might apply for a position in the leadership that might've been an aircraft position and vice versa. I will foster that as well. They are different services and slightly different cultures. We also open the door that if there's a soldier that wants to make a change and there's a job that they might be able to apply for in the air guard, General Knight and prior adjutant generals have supported it. Vice versa, there's something that, order line airmen really wanted to be a helicopter pilot. And she applied, so she transitioned

[Sophie Sedatny (Legislative Counsel)]: from air guard to the

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: army guard. So we do the most we can together, and then at the headquarters level, we learn a lot from

[Colonel Roger Ziegler]: each other.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Representative Waters Evans.

[Representative Chea Waters Evans]: You touched on this briefly in your earlier remarks, but I'm wondering how you intend to further the work that's been done with programs, processes, responses to sexual assault and sexual harassment in the Vermont National Guard and how that work will continue under the Obviously, critically important.

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: And all we want, we would want zero cases and with human beings, it's certainly a goal. We've come a long way in terms of how the resources we have, but we always need to keep that as a priority. Because as I said before, if you have people not treating each other with dignity and respect, particularly sexual harassment, sexual assault, it's just corrosive to any organization, particularly in the military. I had the opportunity as the vice wing commander to hire our full time sexual assault response coordinator. Her name is Serena, she's great, she's still there. This was back probably 2017. She came out of a VA environment, her specialty was military sexual trauma. And so that resource inherent and we're still teaching her things about the military because she never served and she didn't have a lot of knowledge, but you don't need to fill that role. You need to learn about it once you get to So the we're hiring the right people, I believe all the time to make sure that we have programs on prevention and then response. And then what I talked about in the caucus meeting this morning is I think the focus that I've seen in my career over the last decade is it's really appropriately so that if we can't prevent something like this from happening, which we do the best we can, then the response, you've got to have the desires and what the victim needs, and they need to leave a driver's seat for that. And the military's come a long way with that. We have a great program that actually, I think, may have emailed, I actually, there was another legislator that asked about this earlier. So I'm in the coming days for my office, I'm gonna email that curriculum that you have now because that's changing things up. It used to be kind of the same old same old curriculum for soldiers and airmen. It's a requirement every year to get sexual assault prevention awareness training, but a lot of our very smart folks are making it almost like a college class, 01/2001, two zero two, three 2003, and making it so that they have more buy in. Not that they don't, but you've got to keep it interesting

[Sophie Sedatny (Legislative Counsel)]: and relevant. And I guess

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky]: those are some of the

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: patterns that don't start. Constantly working on. And once again, I'll reach out again to our civilian community. We'll partner with a lot of those best practices.

[Colonel Roger Ziegler]: Thank you.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Thank you very much, General. And I want to I know you're gonna make yourself available for more Q and A with members as time goes on leading up to the election. I wanted to be conscious of the time that we have together in this room. And so thank you very much for all of that. And we'd like to shift over now to Colonel Zeigler and bring him into the hot seat. How are you, sir?

[Colonel Roger Ziegler]: Very good, sir. How are you? Marvelous. Alright. So, senator Collin Moore, representative Birong, the, members of the, joint operations, government ops Committee, thank you for providing me the opportunity to have a conversation with you about this opportunity to fill the position of TAG. I'll introduce myself, tell you a little bit about me and explain to you why I'm I'm a 50 year old military officer that has almost thirty three years of experience. That'll happen in March. I've served and led in all echelons in the Vermont National Guard, Army National Guard, company, battalion, and brigade. With that, in charge with responsibilities of service members of the Bennington units, and then many high profile director positions on the full time side in the front national. Talk about a few of the reasons why that's important. I've worked and collaborated with Army and Air Service members and supported veterans during my career. I'm currently the president of the Vermont National Guard Charitable Foundation. We provide charitable support to service members, Gold Star families, family members of the services. And when there's a time of need, we help assist provide a financial need for them. That's been a very great honor to fill that role. I'm known to be a dedicated and caring leader that leaves with integrity. I don't go halfway in, I go all the way in. And with that, there's with that is the responsibility of taking care of those people that I've I've been charged to take care of. And I take no reservation in executing whatever process, whatever resource is out there to to do that very deep. If elected for the Vermont's Next Adjutant General, I'm dedicated to leading a transformational era that is focused on advancing the well-being of service members, strengthening recruitment, enhancing retention, improving disaster response and combat readiness, and building a trusted professional organized organization. My goal is to cultivate an environment where people feel protected, respected, and empowered. And to I plan to foster an organization of professionals that are mission ready through executing six goals and objectives. So a little bit about me. That's kind of my four zero four plan for the goals and objectives, but I'm originally from Kansas. My wife and I moved to Vermont in 2009. I feel like I'm a poster child to one of the things we want to get after, I want to get after in the recruiting and retention realm, associated with workforce development. I joined the Kansas Army National Guard at the age of 17, before I graduated from high school, three months before. Later that year, shipped off the basic training. I was enlisted for four and a half years. So I understand the nuances that those people, those service members, air and army have to go through. As a leader, you gotta take that in perspective. Don't put them in harm's way, don't let them go without food, etcetera, etcetera. I got my commission in 2000 excuse me, 1998. There, I believe, based on Vermont and Kansas both have a talent management program, where depending on your level of eagerness, you can map out basically your career from the time you enlisted till the time you depart from this lovely organization. From the time I got my commission, I had the Adjutant General on that worksheet,

[Representative Tom Stevens]: and that was my goal.

[Colonel Roger Ziegler]: I'm very happy to have this opportunity. Sometimes people do not get opportunities whatsoever, so I'm just I'm very fortunate to have this. So moving a little bit forward, moving to Vermont, been put in positions in which working very hard, my experience and my efforts have rewarded me to be placed in higher levels of positions. For example, I've held director positions like the director of logistics, human resource office. I was the deputy of military personnel, and currently, I'm the deputy chief of staff of operations. I'd share all that with you because those are some high profile positions that garner the responsibility to manage all the process procedures that help serve and provide the resources for our service members to get trained to do their mission. Human resource officer vision, I want to pull out and highlight because it gave me the opportunity to learn about the Air National Guard. So as the HR of the human resource officer, I helped manage full time personnel in the Army and the Air. In that tenure, I built some relationships on the Air National Guard side that's been lasting to this day, and it's opened up the opportunity for me to learn about their operations. So I'm not naive to just eat. I'm not naive about the Air. I clearly know the Army, but I do have some experience to be a well rounded person for the position of attack. Current position, actually, I've in my tenure through through through my positions, I've held three of the four largest budgets. So from

[Sophie Sedatny (Legislative Counsel)]: a

[Colonel Roger Ziegler]: financial standpoint, I can help guide and provide guidance with the assistance of our senior finance person, or as our CFO, to manage things within the organization if need be. I'll transition now into my goals and objectives. First one, several of these are all about what I believe is our greatest resource, that's our service members, whether it's army or air. I want to build and foster a value based culture and organizational trust. But this is about providing leadership training and ethical training. Of you have given me my credentials by email, one of the things I received while I was at the Senior Service College was a graduate certificate in leadership and ethics. And in that, I did a research project, basically a paper that talked about ethics and what the importance of that is. In several of these, my efforts will be using that ethical educational perspective to help generate a good moral compass for our service members. They always get put in situations that they don't plan for. They get have to make tough decisions sometimes. And one thing that I can't say that I've necessarily received in my career is how do you do the right thing? We get told to do the right thing all the time. Sometimes people come from a less than luxurious background, homestead or college environment or whatever. So I feel like in some form or fashion, got to find a ground zero for those for those service members. Recruiting retention is obviously one that's been brought up many times associated with workforce development. Again, I feel like I can be a poster child in that aspect. Talking about how great Vermont is. Let's get you here to work here, learn here, and stay here. If we can follow that mantra through, then I see we can build this organization and build a Vermont population. My third goal and objective has to do with service worker well-being and work life balance. Here I want to get after setting better priorities, moving some of the annual requirements that we get told that we have to do, and there's not enough time in the day to do all the things in our regulations and policies that get thrown down at us. So if I set those conditions where service members know when they have to come to drill, when their annual training is, their relationship with their employees, and intern helps out with retention, so they've got predictability. My fourth one is about institution and civic alignment. Again, here,

[Representative Michael Morgan]: I want

[Colonel Roger Ziegler]: to foster our current state partnership program. And I mentioned we've got three countries that we have partnerships with, and I wanna carry the torch further. I know he started this, but, work the civ to civ side of that particular program, in hopes that even maybe we draw some, people from other countries in and help populate this, the state of law. Fifth is about disaster response, providing some resiliency. I've got eighteen years of experience where I've either been one of those soldiers out helping someone in that particular state, And I've also been involved in management and or directing forces to respond to a natural disaster. I've gone through the Joint Task Force Commander course and the Dual Status Commander course, which essentially gives you the authority to be an O6 commander and or from a joint stat a dual status commander course, the ability to actually manage title 10 forces if it gets to that point within the state. So I understand the the necessity for response is a mistake. One of the initiatives with lieutenant colonel Gallipoli that we've engaged the emergency management department in Vermont to help build or to generate a plan for wild wild wildland wildland fires. That was not in place. We made some headway. We've got a tentative plan. We need to document it, but initiative that I started, at least started the conversation. So it's little things like that we gotta prepare for the future and what that next disaster might be. And I think I've got that experience and that education that that I can set the stage and the tone to be successful in that area. And then the last one is kind of a give me, but it's getting getting our soldiers and airmen ready for combat for national defense if called upon. By and large, I I feel like I do have the the I do have the credentials for this position. I wanna state that I've I've worked very judiciously throughout my career, so I am primed and ready for this position. As I mentioned, when I got my commission, this was my goal, and I've worked very hard to get here. And I just appreciate the opportunity, one for you to listen and one for me to even Hi. Appreciate for this role. With that, that's my last estimate. Thank you.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Thank you very much, Colonel. And as we start going to the Q and A, I'm gonna prioritize members who have a need to ask a question. So I'm gonna open with Representative Stone.

[Representative Mary-Katherine Stone]: What programs, services and initiatives would you support and enhance regarding mental health, well-being and resilience for service members and their families?

[Colonel Roger Ziegler]: Well, first and foremost, I think we've got to do a better job in one, identifying Nova service members and airmen service members that are struggling. There are some that will step up and communicate. And General Knight, to be quite honest, he's been an advocate in trying to push people, don't be afraid, we have to continue that. But I've mentioned, I wanted, empowerment's gonna be very important in my career. If I get elected, empowerment's gonna be pretty important. It's getting those individuals, those leaders, enlisted officer, even more officer that have that daily interaction with our service members to identify that need, whether it's, hey, I'm just struggling with the daily requirements of life or I've got a mental health crisis. It's all about, in my opinion, we've got great services. Maybe not enough, I mentioned in the previous testimony, I think we need more mental health professionals out there. I think that this should be my only priority, but nonetheless, we have great resources. We got to get the people to them. So identification is necessary first and foremost. And again, I mentioned education is going be pretty important. We don't, you know, me, when I was a private, I knew nothing about mental health. So I can't expect them to take professional reaction, but it's helping them identify or at least open up the dialogue. Once we identify some of the issues, then we get them to our professionals. And most of our soldiers, our service members, they kind of know that, but we've to build confidence.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Representative Nugent.

[Representative Kate Nugent]: Thank you. Could you tell me about a time when you failed and how you managed it?

[Sophie Sedatny (Legislative Counsel)]: Sorry,

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: Kate. I couldn't hear you. I

[Representative Kate Nugent]: said, can you tell me about a time when you failed and how you managed it?

[Major General Gregory C. Knight]: Let me this is the one that

[Colonel Roger Ziegler]: comes to mind, although I don't think it's an extreme that you're probably looking for, but it's kind of a success, in my mind it's a failure, not only because it's the expectations I place upon myself. I do care so much about our programs and our service members that you'll understand why I say this is a failure. So one year on the job, I was hired in full time and one of the reasons why I moved here, my wife and I moved to Vermont, our service maintenance office was ranked in the 20s. There were some programs, some activities that we needed to bolster, and I rallied the charge. We did so well within one year, we rose to rank number two. So you're thinking, where's the failure in that? It's because we won number one. But talked to and our goal was to be number one. So all the team members that took part in that, you know, they had this sense of failure like as if they let me down. So my response to that as a leader was, hey, we made huge strides to be proud of that. Be absolutely proud of what you've done, and we've got years to come to get to number one. So that's what comes to mind.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Thank you, girl. I'm gonna go to representative Hooper of Randolph.

[Representative Philip Jay Hooper]: I was pleased to hear you mention something about forest fire protection at the end there. Can you tell us more about that when you you were the one who

[Colonel Roger Ziegler]: Yeah. So so there have been there's wild landfires all across The United States Of America, right? We have a huge forest landmass within the center of our state, and it's been a while since we've had any large any kind of large wildland fire, but there's always that possibility. And a part of our responsibilities is to prepare for that next disaster. Sometimes it's hard to guess when that might be, but this one seemed like an easy one to get ready for, especially since I think there was a question asked about the changes in the environment. We just had a drought this year, right, and across the state of Vermont. Prime prime environment for a big wildland fire to to to ignite. Thank goodness it didn't happen. So we interacted with the state emergency department as the lead, as General Harter had mentioned in every case, we're in a support role. And this is one, even though the idea may have been pushed by general, excuse me, Lieutenant Colonel Gallico and I, we played a part in just having a dialogue and talking through, hey, what resources does Vermont have? What can we provide if it gets to that, if that situation occurs? And between the State Forestry Department, State Emergency Management, and us, we've got a plan, what we will provide and what state resources will be provided. So made good progress on that front.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Senator Velasquez?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky]: Thank you. Similar question to the one I asked before, and that is what you see as your role and responsibility as the commander in chief of the Vermont National Guard if you were to receive orders that violate federal, state, or international law?

[Colonel Roger Ziegler]: So I I would be very saddened if I got put in a position where I had to fulfill or to fully answer that question, here's why. That kind of directive comes from the federal government, right? There are so many echelons in the chain of command to get down to my level of support, our soldiers and airmen respond. With that, each of those levels of command has a legal counsel. For us military members, we this sincere duty to serve, to respond, because we care about whatever it is that's going on. But basically, I find that to be a very rare, if impossible, situation to be put in. And I say that meaning, because of all those legal reviews, I'm not a lawyer. How am I supposed to know whether it's lawful or not, to be quite honest? I am hoping that the people above me that's charged to ensure that we do the right thing, that they've made the right decision before they asked us to call, or before they called us to do the duty. Now, I would have the same sentiment. If I absolutely know because I am a lawyer, put all things aside, let's say I am a lawyer and I do know all the deep net no details to the situation. I would agree with General Harder, I would resign. I would not wanna be the person that has to take our service members downrange or to respond to a city that could violate certain laws, human rights, if you will. But again, you're asking a question in my professional opinion that has a lot of nuances to it, and I really truly believe that there are a lot of checks and balances throughout the organization before that level of severity type decision would happen.

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky]: Could we ask a clarifying question? Do they have general counsel?

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: Ma'am.

[Senator Brian Collamore]: The question is, do you have counsel?

[Senator Tanya Vyhovsky]: General counsel.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: They are colloquially known as JAGs, yes.

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: Thank you. That's right, bud.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Representative Morgan?

[Representative Michael Morgan]: Same question, Roger, that I asked of General Harter. What would your case for being the most seamless transition into the seat of Adjutant General? Thank Your case for that. Thanks

[Colonel Roger Ziegler]: for that, Representative Warder. So again, I mentioned I've been placed in many of the senior director positions throughout the organization. Again, they can know air and army, finances, logistics, personnel. So I have a wealth of knowledge that I can carry with me into the job. Now I am a couple levels below to be transparent. You know, I'm not the DAG. I'm not the director of the joint staff. But regardless of that, I have the experience, have the knowledge, I have the fortitude, I have the confidence to step in that job because anybody can step into a new job and figure it out and do it. I mentioned to you, I do not go halfway in. Once I get into any job, I did not know everything about the current job I've had. But you know what, a lot of people say I'm doing a bang up job. Same thing when I was the HRO, I had no EMS officer experience. I'm a logistics officer. But I got in there and the team that I left, they wished I'd come back. There's just examples like that, but again, I know I can step in behind General Knight, carry the torch, take as much energy that I have forward, and also take on some additional stuff. I do not need to necessarily fill in one of the other positions to do that role. Personal opinion. And I can prove that you Appreciate

[Major General Gregory C. Knight]: the perspective. Thank you. Sure.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Yeah. Had senator Clarkson's hand up, but I

[Representative Tom Stevens]: also have two other members here who haven't asked a question yet. Can I defer to one of them?

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Thank you. I will go with representative Coffin.

[Representative VL Coffin IV]: Thank you. And I know this has been mentioned before. Our retention in our green list is high right now. How do you plan to keep it that way and also to inspire coming off active duty to join the squad guard instead of somewhere else?

[Colonel Roger Ziegler]: So, know, there's a lot of things I don't want to regurgitate what General Knight and the team's doing right now. You know, we are going to active duty installations, we're drawing active duty personnel here, So can't tell you that's my idea. From a retention standpoint though, it's my opinion, if I push the empowerment piece, there are a lot of soldiers, give a sense of purpose to our soldiers. I'm not saying we don't do it right now, but I think we can do it better. And I feel like I wanna push that that level of emphasis, highlight that for our service members, and I think our retention will continue to increase. There are a lot of benefits, though, in my opinion. Mentioned in a previous testimony, education benefits, some of our medical benefits. We're not on par against some of the other states. Now, to advocate for service members, that would be something I'd wanna do, but it's at a cost and I'm not naive. I'm a taxpayer in this in this state just like everyone else. So there's there there is a balance and we got we just gotta continue to have that conversation. From your perspective, what are the priorities and and and my input on what we have for priorities. And if they align, then you know what? We'll find the money. Otherwise, I have to answer that question, and I need to make sure that, again, is in place, the right kind of leadership, empowerment's in place, and sense of purpose given our service members, we'll see retention increase. It's my experience, when service members are happy, they have a good time, they're telling their friends, their cousins, their relation, their siblings, they start coming into the organization. General Knight's always said, tell the hard story. And that again, I'm not saying that's my idea, but that really kind of pivots into it. Just gotta keep the pressure on that front.

[Major General Gregory C. Knight]: Thank you.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: Representative Hooper of Burlington, then you, senator. This is for both of you.

[Representative Robert Hooper]: We took an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution. I'm gonna leave this room thinking that stepping aside to let someone else have a crack at authorizing an unlawful order is not fulfilling that duty. Can you elaborate either of you, both of you. You're allowed to bring

[Colonel Roger Ziegler]: Well, I think You're allowed to bring

[Representative Robert Hooper]: the jack up. I think

[Colonel Roger Ziegler]: the general Harvard made a good point. You know, there is there is a little bit of dialogue to gain clarification. Sometimes when you push back, we have a belief and we push back and that dialogue occurs. Now, I didn't make that my statement. He did say that for the record, but I do agree with General Harder. Know, when when things happen to us, even even even for a private to to their platoon leader, things happen, we ask why, are you certain that's the right thing? And we're not supposed to necessarily question our our our higher level leadership. But at the end of the day, my point that I made earlier, you're imposing upon me this question about whether something's lawful or not, but there's so many people that have to professionals, people of people that have law education that would have been asked and validated that particular order. Therefore, I can't believe that we would be put in that position to make that decision. You know, I think, a person were to step down, guess to kind of backtrack, you know, know, they'll have to come drag me out of there. I'm almost certain British genre, we're we'd set the same answer, sir. Yeah. That's that's that's a different story. In every every situation, there's nuance. So to to give a fulfilled answer that you know, that's just an absolute, it's not necessarily something you should take as a gospel for us because there are nuances to every scenario that you get tackled, get thrown into. But we have people, professionals that General Harder and I would lean into, that would help guide steers. We do have some level of education, but law is the law, and that's what we have to sweep.

[Brigadier General Henry "Hank" Carter, Jr.]: Thank you.

[Senator Alison Clarkson]: So I liked your use of the word empowerment and your phrase of building trust. So I'm gonna ask the same question I asked before, which is how would you describe your management style? It's primarily a management job. And how would you describe your management style? What are your management values?

[Colonel Roger Ziegler]: Thanks for the question. I have not changed my management style from the the I've learned a lot from a lieutenant to, you know, my company command time. But by and large, it's been one that depends on the situation. Sometimes you have to be in the room with your team members to ensure that they do not veer from what you know the right aspect is or the right direction of the case is. Sometimes it can be, well, if we're trying to solve a problem, it's collaborative. I totally agree with General Martin. Sometimes we get the best ideas from the lowest level or from our peers. I've had limited time, limited experience, but it's one in which a team has a greater output than an individual. So I know that's a very generic answer, but for me, situation depends. I will adapt to my leadership, my management style based on the environment that I get put in. And it can be three different times in the course of a week or whatever, but it really just depends. Very adaptive leadership. Thank you.

[Representative Matthew Birong]: We're out of time now. Thank you so much. Thank you. And thank you to General Harter. Thank you General Knight. Counsel, yes, that was a lot of information. I'm going to take us off live right now, but I'm sure you gentlemen have some time to hang out for a little bit and hear from members informally. But thank you so much for the time. It's very, very meaningful for

[Major General Gregory C. Knight]: us to have this opportune