publicly stating that we will not use ground troops is a good idea because--

the almost $15 billion a year we spend on Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits is protected for future generations to come.

As an Iraq War veteran myself, I hope and expect that our current generation of veterans will match or exceed those numbers.

I want to thank you very much for your input, for your advice, and for your sharing of ideas here today.

I trust every single person that sits around this table, both sides of the aisle, to be professional and do the right job and try and take care of veterans.

But please--please work with us.

To be quite frank, many in the veterans' community... have said over and over again that more often than not, DoL has ignored the agency altogether.

the best social reform or opportunity for an independent life that anyone has is a job.

From our standpoint here, we want to know if the program that we are endorsing is actually having the result or is the result coming from somewhere else?

I would like to take a second to talk about something that is working well.

But I am not certain that I am hearing that these employment numbers are a result of those programs.