(11 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
So will I and many many Veterans Senator Murray, so will we!
The recent past is still fresh in the minds, the 108th and 109th Congresses and still ongoing two Wars of Choice, the ‘purple heart bandages’, the ‘magnetic ribbons’ {till they blew off} and lapel flag pins as well as the hate rhetoric which continues. The total lack of Demanding ‘Sacrifice’ from the Country especially in the just completed political campaign season as well as since the start of the 112th Congress. We will be watching, especially, the House, and your Senate colleagues “like a hawk” as well, we already started.
We will not allow another DeJa-Vu decades long after Vietnam, as well as the brothers of Korean conflict, as to Veterans Issues! Thanks to the present Veterans Administration, Executive Administration, leadership and finally Congressional hearings and investigations the past four years Veterans Issues have become more proactive then reactive as the Country has lost interest and moved on once again while still sending soldiers into these ongoing theaters of occupation.
New Senate Veterans Affairs chairman promises to monitor GOP spending for vets ‘like a hawk’
Newly named Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chair Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., gestures during an interview with The Associated Press , Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011, in her office on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) (Alex Brandon, AP / January 26, 2011)
January 27, 2011 – The GOP chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Rep. Jeff Miller, promised on Thursday a thorough review of spending for veterans’ programs.
His newly appointed counterpart in the Senate, Sen. Patty Murray, said she will be watching Republicans “like a hawk” to ensure veterans get their financial due.
The House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs committees have jurisdiction over the Veterans Affairs Department, one of the largest federal agencies with a $114 billion budget and 300,000 employees. It provides benefits checks and medical services to the nation’s 22 million veterans, including the thousands coming home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with mental and physical wounds.
House Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Miller, a conservative from the Florida Panhandle, said the VA has had record budget increases in the last decade with little oversight by either party over how the money was spent.
“As we move forward, all areas will have to be reviewed, and that includes looking at the Defense Department, looking at Homeland Security and looking at Veterans Affairs,” Miller said. {continued}
Who is Senator Patty Murray, for those who don’t know.
Murray becomes 1st woman to lead Senate veterans panel
01.27.11 – Senate Democrats selected Washington state’s Patty Murray to head the Veterans’ Affairs Committee Thursday, marking the first time a woman will hold the influential post.
Murray will replace Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii as the new committee chairman. Akaka, an 86-year-old veteran of World War II, has headed the committee for the last four years and will now lead the Committee on Indian Affairs.
“Following in his footsteps is an amazing task, but I am ready to take this on, and I’m very excited,” Murray said in an interview. She called it “an amazing journey for me.”
snip
Murray, 60, knows a thing or two about veterans from personal experience.
She’s the daughter of a disabled World War II veteran, who earned the Purple Heart as one of the first GIs to land on Okinawa and then returned home to Bothell, Wash., to run a five-and-ten-cents shop.
And in the summer of 1972, as a 22-year-old student at Washington State University, she interned at the Seattle veterans hospital, where she was assigned to do physical rehabilitation in the psychiatric ward. {continued}