Ellen Tauscher: “Mr. Speaker, this summer in the aftermath of news reports of murders in Fort Bragg, I wrote to the chairman of the…”

“Mr. Speaker, this summer in the aftermath of news reports of murders in Fort Bragg, I wrote to the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump), requesting the opportunity for us to start to understand exactly what impact domestic violence and other issues were having on our military families. The gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh), chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel, who is a great leader, and others traveled with me to Fort Bragg this past few weeks on a fact-finding mission which I hope will begin what I think will be very important work of our subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services. In this time of asymmetrical warfare, this time of great uncertainty for military families and, frankly, for reservists around the country, where we have a war on terrorism where we have extreme PERSTEMPO and extreme OPSTEMPO, where families are double deployed around the world, it is important for us to understand what the trauma of this deployment means to military families, and I think it is very important for us to understand that the American people are not only supporting our military with the best training and the best leadership and the best materiel that we can possibly have, but we are also supporting the most important component of military families, the families themselves, by making sure that we have the kinds of programs that are found in the private sector.”