What I've been thinking about doing is in certain selected areas, critical need areas, if you'll stay to 22 years of service you can retire maybe at 59 years old, and just walk your way down to 55 years old, as an incentive to stay on.

I think moving retirement benefits from 30 to 40 years, where you can continue to accrue it, is a good step forward.

I cannot think of a better use of the Congress' time and efforts to come together and come up with a game plan to deal with our consumption back here at home.

Money spent now on Alzheimer's, I think, will pay great dividends and will help young Americans realize the American dream.

This disease is unusual in the sense that it represents what I think is the biggest challenge to the country--demographic changes.

Well, that gets us to a point--we are spending money very quickly on some things that are very controversial, and there is a lot of pushback.

I would urge you, when it comes to budget matters, programs that need funding, to be more aggressive, lean forward.

I cannot think of a more dire consequence to the United States really in many ways than to have Mexico just collapse.

Thank you for the job you've done for the country, and I think you can leave your post looking back and saying that you were there when it mattered the most maybe since World War II for sure.

We don't have private sector dental health care usually. It's not that the Army's just inheriting a problem that society has.

If you'll serve 22 years, you can maybe retire at 50.

The men and women of our superb Active and Reserve Armed Forces have been on a wartime footing now for over 7 years.

Anything you can think of to deal with this problem, whether you need money or legal changes, we stand ready to help.

There's a lot of conflict in Congress and between the parties, and that's just the way democracy works.

That's the point. I mean that is an astonishing number, to me, if you had 780 contacts last year.

Overall, my goal in the next 6 months is due diligence and regimented enforcement of all institutional processes that exist to take care of soldiers with an ultimate goal being significant reduction in the number of suicides.

Brigadier General Sutton and Ms. Power, do military leaders routinely receive data on suicide attempts? If not, should they?

I hope that this hearing will lead us to a better understanding of the factors that military organizations and families can positively influence.

We all share your view that the current numbers of suicides in the Army are unacceptable.

This is one subcommittee, I think, that has really gotten the spirit of what we're all about here and tried to be as nonpartisan as possible.

From the 30,000-foot level here, for the 4-year period I just described, Air Force deployments have not come down.

$50 million sounds like a lot of money to me. Do you support that initiative?

how much money was allocated by component in fiscal year 2008, and fiscal year 2009 to attract and retain mental health professionals both in uniform and as civilian?

what is your Service providing now in leadership training for noncommissioned officers (NCOs) regarding suicide prevention

I believe that the military has made progress on many fronts in confronting the issue of stigma.