Mike Conaway: “General Petraeus, you went through his resume awhile ago, something that you didn't mention was that he has been…”

“General Petraeus, you went through his resume awhile ago, something that you didn't mention was that he has been deployed overseas, away from his family 4 years since this fight began in 2001, a significant sacrifice for his family, and in order for him to do the job that we have asked him to do. He said he is keenly aware, personally as well as for the men and women that he leads, that the impact that multiple deployments have had, the impact of the 15-month deployment instead of the 12-month deployment is having on these troops. He said that they have answered the call every single time and have not yet one time blinked in the face of some incredible sacrifices and commitments that we are asking them to take on. One of the problems that we face here stateside is that a remarkably small percentage of Americans have been directly involved in this fight. We have a little more than 4,000 families now whose lives are forever changed as a result of that knock on the door saying that their loved one has been killed in action or killed in one of these two fights in Afghanistan or Iraq. We have 25,000 or so others wounded in some level of severity, some who have returned to the fight, and many who have life-altering circumstances that happened in the blink of the eye.”