Political Quotes

“This en bloc amendment includes two of my amendments. The first seeks to address what many consider to be a serious mistake made by our military and this Congress over the last decade of war, that is, allowing some of our troops, including several of my constituents, to deploy without certain equipment that they need to be safe in combat. Instead, these troops had to rely on their families and friends to send them this vital equipment. My amendment calls on the DOD to survey troops who have served since September 11 in order to find out what, if any, equipment they did without and what equipment they relied on family and friends to send them. I want to be clear. This is not an effort to condemn our military or the Armed Services Committee. In fact, I applaud their valuable efforts in this area. Yet, now that we are winding down our war in Afghanistan and we are out of Iraq, we need to understand our mistakes to avoid making them again in future conflicts. My second amendment is very simply a reintroduction of language adopted last year by unanimous consent but that was, unfortunately, removed in conference. It addresses the fact that our servicemembers deployed in Afghanistan only receive mental health assessments prior to deployment and after returning home. Yet it is during deployment--in combat--that these events leading to mental health issues are most likely to occur.…”