Elijah Cummings: “I want to thank Mrs. Tauscher for this very important legislation, and I support it wholeheartedly. I want to say to the…”

“I want to thank Mrs. Tauscher for this very important legislation, and I support it wholeheartedly. I want to say to the last gentleman that spoke, it is because we support our troops, because we care about them and their families, that we support this legislation. 159,000 of our troops are currently deployed in battle to stabilize Iraq. On Tuesday, the United States Department of Defense reported that another 20,000 will be sent to Iraq for rotation duty. In the meantime, our servicemembers continue to suffer through multiple deployments with little time for rest or to retrain. The DOD has continuously failed to meet the goal of deploying active duty troops for 1 year and allowing them to rest for 2, along with ensuring that Reservists are deployed for 1 year and rest for 5. This failure has often been called a backdoor draft. Not only has ongoing multiple deployments had a detrimental physical and emotional impact on our troops and their families, but it also has hindered the Armed Forces' ability to reach its retention and recruitment goals. Namely, both the Army and Air Force have failed to reach their retention goals for the mid-career and career personnel. At the current rate, there will be few officers and enlisted soldiers left to lead. Who will be our next generation of soldiers? I urge all of my colleagues to vote in support of this legislation.”