Political Quotes

“this is a tough bill. We found out after Vietnam that, instead of rotating our forces, if we had just stayed there with the same force, as we did in World War II, our fighting would have been more effective and less lives would have been lost. But this war is different. We found out in World War II that, on average, a man in that combat did 182 days of combat, horrific combat, but 182 days on average. In this war, in those 15 months, our men and women are overseas in Iraq. Every day of those 15 months those men and women go outside the wire, into combat. This is a different war. I am taken, first and foremost, by the reports that more are coming home with post-traumatic syndrome. I am, second, taken with our constitutional responsibility to make rules for the government and regulation of our armed services. And then third, I'm taken by the waiver, the national security waiver that is placed within this bill that our national command authorities, the President and the Secretary of Defense may waiver for national security reasons the requirement to send troops forward if they have even been home less than they were in combat.”