Mark Begich

Do you think the types of recommendations that you've made are--assuming from your perspective--reasonable; do you think it's what is going on in the Anchorage region?

I don't know if I've ever seen or done a 268-page PowerPoint.

Are you going to try to be the lead convenor of that?

Thank you very much.

Ric, your testimony has all around good detail in some of the issues around the 3 percent set-aside.

This process of bringing it back in June will allow us a chance to publicly say here's a success or here are areas that just aren't working out as well as we thought.

Could you at least at a minimum, if we don't hear the answer to that when I move through the panel here, get us an answer?

That's something that we can obviously, from our office, too, follow up to see if Alaska has...

Do you have a high turnover rate that is caused by some factor that's explainable?

I have a feeling the next panel will hopefully have a question or two from what you've just laid out to see how that works.

Thank you very much, Mr. Owens. Thanks to all the panel for the diverse views on some of the work of the VA.

This is an opportunity for us to hear and to ask some questions.

This hearing will focus on the state of services for veterans in Alaska.

That's only a function of the laws that people like myself can pass.

This hearing, the Field Hearing on Services for Veterans' Affairs in Alaska is called to order.

There's always room for improvement no matter what you're doing.

Thank you both very much for being here and I will have some questions. I won't make it Groundhog Day where it's the same questions as yesterday.

Is there something that we can do through our jobs efforts to make a difference in regards to making sure that those employers who are really pulling the weight here, making sure they rehire when soldiers come back?

We'll call this meeting to order. This is a Field Hearing on Services for Veterans in Alaska for the Veterans' Affairs Committee of the U.S. Senate.

I'd be very interested in the information on the work you're doing with regard to suicide prevention.

I can tell you I can only imagine what that's like when the load gets heavy.

Is there anything we can do? Especially when I was mayor we did audits all the time; we always had a team that would follow up on a regular basis.

I appreciate your review of your 268-page PowerPoint.

VA funding fees on home loans?

I want to thank you, Joe, for your testimony.