JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J.- -- The Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Army Command Sergeant Major John Troxell, toured the Joint Base installation and hosted an enlisted all call in a hangar on Joint Base MDL Aug. 3.
During the all call, Troxell addressed the key concerns that prevent our service members from being the best war fighters as possible, while highlighting on non-deployable service members.
“We have to be the most fit and the most lethal because the threats aren’t going away,” said Troxell. “That means all of us, all five branches, must be prepared to fight.”
While on stage, the SEAC spoke about our current adversaries and addressed the main concern of physical fitness standards and how the current obesity problem plaguing the force affects the military as a whole as well as defense budget costs.
Troxell explained that out of two million active, guard and reserve armed forces 250,000 of them are non-deployable. Of those, 100,000 are non-deployable due to clinically obesity.
“That means that they are so obese that they require medical care to treat that obesity and that comes at a health care cost at about $5 billion a year,” said Troxell.
“We need to improve our fitness programs and be better with how we eat and how we conduct our training,” Troxell continued. “In order to deter those threats or thwart the efforts of those threats we need all hands on deck, we need everyone to be deployable because that’s what we are here to do. So every day we have to challenge ourselves physically, mentally and emotionally and grow technically and tactically so that we are the most fit, the most lethal, most healthy and most deployable force that we can have.”
Troxell left those in attendance inspired to maintain their physical and mental strength not just for themselves, but for the sake of those to their left and their right.
“The enlisted force is the backbone of our military, said Troxell. “And we will be the ones who break the backs of our adversaries.”