Mitch Landrieu: “There is an EC-2 squadron out of Virginia that is in transit, and an F-18 squadron out of Georgia in transit. In the…”

“There is an EC-2 squadron out of Virginia that is in transit, and an F-18 squadron out of Georgia in transit. In the current budget, they have been decommissioned because there is no money in the current budget for these troops that are en route to fight the battle that is being waged. There is something wrong, and what is wrong is we are underfunding our Guard and Reserve. Perhaps we are putting too much of an emphasis on tax cuts and not enough of an emphasis on the strength that this country needs at this time, and sharing those resources with the Guard and Reserve and plussing them up. In addition, when the Guard and Reserve members go, they leave their jobs behind, they take a cut in pay, and unfortunately they do not get the same benefits that many of our Active do. This has to change if we are going to ask them to serve not just on the weekends, not just once every couple of years, these units have been out there--some of them are on their fourth rotation.”