Jon Tester

Well, thank you, Mr. Gear. I appreciate your testimony also as with the two preceding participants.

I rise today out of deep respect for our colleague, Senator Robert C. Byrd. Sharla and I extend our condolences to the Byrd family and to all the people of West Virginia. We join you in mourning but also in a celebration of his life and…

I rise today to share an incredible story about a community working together in the aftermath of a powerful storm in Billings, MT. The storm that occurred on Father's Day spawned at least one tornado that touched down in Billings Heights…

Unless we have community support for schools, we are sunk.

We have to have good teachers. We have a hard time recruiting teachers in Indian Country.

If we are going to break the cycle of poverty in Indian Country, we have got to have a good education system.

I have never said a good word about No Child Left Behind.

Question Submitted by Senator Jon Tester

Questions Submitted by Senator Jon Tester

What are the rebates that Federal Agencies receive used for?

This is one hell of a mess that we need to get our arms around, get cleaned up, and get the people held harmless as soon as possible.

That is our priority with me, to try to get them back in the system.

The best communication with these veterans is face to face interaction with someone who is knowledgeable, well trained, and willing to assist these men and women that we owe such indebtedness to.

It is critically important that we do not let our rural and frontier veterans lose out on the health care and benefits that they have earned.

Senator Tester can tell you all about that from Montana.

If we put all our energy into where the general population lives, we will not live up to our country's promises for all veterans.

Veterans in Montana expect you to check your party politics at the door and focus on doing what is right and we owe them no less.

It seems a bit odd, as far as if we take individual by individual and not have guidelines.

We have got more female veterans coming into the VA system every year.

I think it really could be a win for Priority 8 folks.

I think it is an incredible opportunity.

I am pleased to say that things have gotten better since then.

Mental health services were generally very tough to come by and many folks didn't understand how to respond to combat stresses, PTSD, and TBI.

We do not even have anyone our staff such as that.

I think the idea of a sustainability group that is talked about for the regions for this education, where you bring together private sector, public sector, and others in a consortium to talk about these ideas, it is extremely important.