John Hall: “before being sworn in, I was home in my district for a couple of weeks doing a listening tour traveling around the five…”

“before being sworn in, I was home in my district for a couple of weeks doing a listening tour traveling around the five counties that I represent, and I had dozens of my constituents come up to me and say, Please bring them home, bring our troops home. I didn't have one person in my district in New York come up to me and say, Please send more over there. I am proud and honored and humbled, and I must say saddened at the same time, at the prospect that as a member of the Veterans' Affairs committee of this House that I will be able and be responsible to help returning veterans from this war deal with their physical, psychological, economic, housing and other problems. It is an honor. It is an important service to provide. But what is a shame is that we are creating so many more veterans that have so much more grievous problems, that this war is producing injuries that in previous wars might not have been survivable. The good news is that the soldiers, our servicemen and -women, are surviving in greater numbers. The bad news is that when they come home, they have to deal with much longer periods of rehabilitation or much more serious injuries and limitations on their mobility and on their other physical capabilities.”