I dont want to spend the rest of my life just being a guy who fought in the war in iraq. In november we were ordered to once again hit fluja. And that was just complete chaos. Most reporters caught, you know, six days in falluja. For most of us it was more more like 3 to 4 weeks of intense combat. And by the time we were done, we had lost 33 marines and the city was in bad shape. It was pretty much destroyed. We have a film. We like to say that in a world full of problems, ground operations is a story about solutions. We have a lot of veterans coming back from both from iraq, who have been here for a while, and from afghanistan, who are coming home now. Ptsd often doesnt show up rightway. It can be a year or two or more before it really starts to show up. Youre always on alert. You know, youre thinking of the worst scenarios that are gonna happen. [explosion] whoa we were going through th town, and we had snipers on the buildings. They were firing at us. Bombs were blowing up everywher
Officials, journalists and a representative from the International Crisis group. Good morning, everybody. My name is john hamre and im very pleased to have all of you join us today for what is going to be a fascinating conversation. I was talking with our very distinguished speakers just as we were waiting for people to gather and i said you know, in washington, north africa is kind of a blank spot. So much in this region that we dont know. We tend to look out your appeared we tend to look at africa and the middle east. We dont tend to look at the mall grub and think about it in a systematic awful way. That is going to be the opportunity for today. We are going to have a dad with these remarkable leaders and i do want to stay thank you for coming. Im very proud that you would be here. We are going to explore three Different Things today. We are going to take an honest look at terrorism in the maghrib. We are going to analyze what the governments of the region are doing and how they are
Subcommittee on health and subcommittee on Economic Opportunity on veteran homelessness. I want to apologize for being late. I had another obligation in my responsibility on the budget committee. My colleague, chair of the Health Subcommittee wont be able to make it so im going to preside. We have subcommittee brownlee and her capable leadership and my friend from texas and Ranking Member on the subcommittee for Economic Opportunity is joining me as well. We have our chairman joining us so thank you, dr. Rowe, for coming. I want to begin by asking for unanimous consent for congressman mike kaufman, congressman scott peters and i guess thats it, to sit in on the dais and participate in todays hearing. I dont hear any objection. So ordered. Im going to cut through my remarks here and break from my customary reading of script and just say that this is a subject that is heartbreaking. And when you look at the statistics on veterans homelessness and the underlying issues that our veterans s
So that leads to my next question. Youre tracking that particular amount of money, if you will, and where its going, its going strictly to new infrastructure . To modernization . What is the plan there . Right. Well, currently today, if we exit a property, that money gets returned to the u. S. Treasury. Were not able to reinvest that. The infrastructure bill would change that. So thats why were very supportive of that. What we do save are the recurring savings, the maintenance. So we dont heat the buildings, we dont have to repair them if we get rid of them. That remains in our general what we call our nrn budgets, our recurring maintenance budgets. Do you think there will be a way to, in some way, get an idea of how its converted directly or indirectly to care or. Yes. Services. Yes. And what we would plan on diagnosis is reinvesting that money back into probably nrn or minor construction projects. Okay. We could track that. Thank you. Another question i have is one of the things that
They told the House Veterans Affairs committee that the trip was appropriate. Colorado republican responded saying it is not the objects that are not to good it is the facts that are not good. Congressman kaufman spoke with reporters after he concluded. This entire event is two hours and 15 minutes. [inaudible conversations] the committee will come to order. Good morning and thank you for all to be here to discuss the president s fiscal year this fiscal years budget request holds a 198. 6 billion Million Dollars in va funding. That is a huge number. And even more striking when you compare the growth in the vas brother jim. Since 2006 the va budget is up hundred and 75 percent. And gdp grew only 40 . Given the aggressive expansion of the eight resources i appreciate the secretarys testimony the departments core objectives that support those objectives. It may it must stay focused. They will take action on many important items in fiscal year 2019. Some examples include implementation and