Patty Murray

I thank the Chair. I urge my colleagues to vote to table this amendment. And if the Senator wants to finish his remarks, I will move to table when he is finished.

I think it is important for us to get the VA up here.

I am deeply concerned about this. This has been a hidden problem coming home from our veterans for far too long.

I want to know immediately what is being done, immediately what is being done to make sure that this is not happening to anybody.

I am shocked that this would happen at even one medical center. It is entirely unacceptable.

Good morning and welcome to today's hearing on how we can close the gaps in mental health care for our Nation's veterans.

We cannot leave this as a hidden problem or something we are looking at and report back a year from now.

I think it is really imperative that we hear directly from the VA's mental health care providers who are on the front lines treating our veterans.

In Senator Murray's home State of Washington, the DOD OCRP has funded five grants in the last 5 years to either the University of Washington or to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center to study research questions regarding:

We, as a country, are going to be taking care of them, and their families, not just today, not just when they return home, for but a lifetime.

The President has made it clear that he intends to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in the coming months, and while I am a supporter of this drawdown, I am concerned with the security situation on the ground for our remaining forces.

Because we're about to make some of the same mistakes we made after the Vietnam war.

The relationship that the Pentagon has with the Veterans Administration (VA) and with communities throughout the country has got to get stronger.

And this country will be paying for it 20 years from now.

I do think we have to really seriously be considering this, because it does impact our troops today.

I take this issue very seriously, and I've been trying to draw attention to some of the all too often unseen costs of war.

If we do this nationwide we are going to see costs reduced in special education and remediation.

I believe that these kinds of investments really are some of the most important that we can make.

I believe I am the only person in the Congress that is a former preschool teacher.

I am going to continue to make sure that this Committee does all it can to ensure that our veterans receive the benefits and services they have earned through their service to this Nation.

We have a responsibility to protect our veterans and to protect our employees.

The breakdown in communication is a serious issue.

We have been waiting a long time for a redesign.

For too long we have been investing billions of dollars in training our young men and women to protect our Nation, only to ignore them when they come home.

Our hands-off approach has left us now with an unemployment rate in February of over 27 percent among young veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan.