Mitch Landrieu: “I do so through the Chair. I first say how much I appreciate the exchange between the Senator from Virginia and the…”

“I do so through the Chair. I first say how much I appreciate the exchange between the Senator from Virginia and the Senator from Illinois. I hope we can find a way to move forward on this very important issue because it is so crucial to the security of our Nation, to the security of these Guard and Reserve families. It seems the right thing for us to do. My question to the Senator from Virginia, because he has so much experience in warfighting as the Secretary of the Department of Navy and as the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, is: When we created the Guard and Reserve Force, did we anticipate that so many would be called up for such a long period of time? That is an important answer to have because my sense of it is that we didn't completely anticipate these numbers and these lengths of deployment. I ask the Senator, several decades ago, did we foresee this dependency?”