Saying he was going over the service’s proposed 2017 budget “like a bulldog on a bone,” acting Army Secretary Patrick Murphy told a Senate panel that he intends to “make sure we have the combat capability to fight and win our nation’s wars.” The service has no desire to see strength cut, Murphy and Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley told the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Association of the U.S. Army reported Feb. 24. Nevertheless, Murphy and Milley told the panel they believe keeping more troops on duty without adequate funding would be a worse choice. The two cautioned lawmakers that they were making decisions to preserve current readiness at the expense of modernization. No new modernizations would take place for the remainder of the decade under the current scenario, they told the panel. The Army is asking for slightly less than $123 billion for fiscal 2017 (Oct. 1, 2016-Sept. 30, 2017), down from the $123.3 billion approved for this fiscal year.