Haley Stevens: “we only use these vessels for the time they are actually in the war zone under this contract. As the Senator from Hawaii…”

“we only use these vessels for the time they are actually in the war zone under this contract. As the Senator from Hawaii says, we pay people by the day rather than by the lifetime. I agree with the Senator from Iowa, we ought to compensate our people in the military who go in harm's way more than we do, but we set up a very complex system here to take care of the people who are actually harmed in the military. We set up a different system for people who enter harm's way for a very short period of time and we have no further responsibility to them for any injuries they might sustain, as far as that is concerned. All of the costs of this bill are subject to rejection by the Secretary of Defense at the time the ships will be called up. He could decline to use these ships and once again go back to trying to use foreign ships if they were available to us at a reasonable cost. There are no foreign ships available to us anywhere near the cost of this bill. So I have moved to table this. I hope Senators will not be misled by this concept that, somehow or another, conservatives oppose this bill. This is a very fair bill to us and to the people who might be put in harm's way in order to serve the defense of our country.”