Charles Skelton: “Mr. Chairman, I thoroughly support this amendment, and I fully support the war against terrorism. I support the bill as…”

“Mr. Chairman, I thoroughly support this amendment, and I fully support the war against terrorism. I support the bill as reported from the Committee on Appropriations, and I rise to comment on one of the important deficiencies in this bill: funding for our National Guard and our Reserve personnel. Since September 11, some 83,000 National Guardsmen and Reservists have been called to active duty to support the war on terrorism. These are citizen soldiers, every bit as important as the regular active duty personnel, and these servicemembers are serving around the globe in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Korea and elsewhere. They are helping to prosecute the war against terrorism. We have a duty to fully support them. Unfortunately, this bill does not do that. The supplemental requested by the administration includes only $4.1 billion for military personnel modernization and readiness. Because of the size of the National Guard and Reserve call-up, the duration of that call-up, and the use of stop-loss authorities to keep personnel on active duty once they have been mobilized, the bill on this personnel call-up comes to $1.8 billion above the $4.1 billion requested by the administration. I commend the Committee on Appropriations for partially addressing the funding shortfall. The bill includes an additional $790 million.”