And as I have said, I was told don't do anything stupid quite a few times in my military career.

You bring up a great point because the Army that I was commissioned into in 1982 and the threats that we saw then were totally different than the threats that I saw in 2005, when I went to Afghanistan.

I get very concerned when you look and see a lot of these weapons systems... that all of a sudden we cancel these programs.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ranking member, and also thanks to the panel for being here today.

future generations will regard their service to this Nation based upon how well we treat our veterans.

I think that is my biggest concern, is that what we ask the men and women to do... is different from someone just going to a bank.

I believe in 5 years on this side I could get vested into an even greater retirement.

And I just hope that our fiscal irresponsibility on this side does not become borne on the backs of our men and women in uniform or their families.

So it is a very dangerous road when we start to go down the comparative analysis of the private sector or business sector to the United States military.

We have gone from 546 Navy war vessels down to 285.

We are not funding it.