Jim Inhofe: “first of all, let me associate myself with the remarks of the Senator from Iowa. It is so important for all of us…”

“first of all, let me associate myself with the remarks of the Senator from Iowa. It is so important for all of us, particularly those of us who have had occasion to serve, to really pay attention to what is going on. This is Military Appreciation Month, and it is very significant, what is going on. Every month should be Military Appreciation. As the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and as a veteran, it is my great honor and responsibility to support our warfighters during and after their service. Whenever they were needed, they were there, and so we have to do a better job in supporting them. We went through 8 years of not adequately supporting the military, and it is something that many of them are suffering from now. Now, next week, as it was pointed out, we are going to do the Defense authorization bill. It is not very often you can stand here and say we are going to introduce a bill, and we know it is going to pass. The reason we know it is going to pass is because it has passed for the last 58 years. So this one is going to pass. I can remember a few years that we actually had to go into September to get the Defense authorization bill passed. In the event it got to the end of December, and the same thing would be true this coming year, then we would have hazard pay that wouldn't be paid, and we would have flight pay that wouldn't be paid. There would not be adequate funding to take care of any of that.…”