Sam Farr: “I agree it is totally essential that we bring that COLA equity to the military retirees. Second, I strongly support the…”

“I agree it is totally essential that we bring that COLA equity to the military retirees. Second, I strongly support the effort in a bipartisan way to bring this bill to fruition so we can continue to support military education in this country. With the downsizing of the military, we, indeed, must support our military schools and open opportunities that these schools are experiencing, like naval postgraduate school and the seaman-to-admiral program and the Defense Language Institute, which is doing a lot to help our troops in Bosnia and in Serbia to understand the Croatian and Serbian languages and help our troops with the translation that is going on with the 29 other countries that are now serving along with the NATO forces in Bosnia. Third, I would like to point out that this is a bill that really assists with the base closure issues that was not all in Milcon, the authorizations for bases to do what they have to do with base closures, which is the largest base closure list we have ever had in this country, which is addressed in this legislation.”