AUSA on the Hill
AUSA’s Director of Government Affairs, Bill Loper, attended a press conference called by Sens. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., to launch S. 604, “The Military Health Care Protection Act.” The legislation would place reasonable and affordable caps on enrollment fees, deductibles and pharmacy co-pays for military retirees using TRICARE. The legislation would also establish that the percentage of increase in retirees’ health fees in any given year should not exceed the percentage of increase in their compensation.
“America’s career military service members make tremendous sacrifices in service to our country. We cannot burden our military retirees and their families with dramatic increases in out-of-pocket healthcare expenses. It is wrong to increase healthcare fees on the men and women who have already contributed greatly to our nation before addressing current inefficiencies in the TRICARE system,” Sen. Hagel said.
“We need to provide our troops with the best equipment money can buy. But we also must provide them and their families, as well as those who have retired, the best quality healthcare at the most affordable price,” said Sen. Lautenberg. He added, “If we tell our soldiers and sailors it is their duty to protect America, it is our duty to provide for them when they return and retire.”
AUSA strongly endorses this legislation and appreciates the continued support Sens. Lautenberg and Hagel have provided on this important issue.
Your letters to Congress do make a difference!! Please go to the AUSA website, www.ausa.org, click on “Contact Congress” then after “Elected Officials” type your Zip Code and scroll down to “Stop Erosion of Military Health Care Benefits”.
Mr. Loper also attended a press conference to show AUSA support for the Total Force Educational Assistance Enhancement and Integration Act. The Act will modernize the Montgomery GI Bill to more effectively support armed forces recruiting, retention and readjustment following military service, and will better reflect a Total Force concept that ensures members of our Selected Reserve receive educational benefits that match their increases service to the nation.
The legislation would make several other changes to include codifying standard Selected Reserve benefits so that any time Congress increases the active duty rate, the Reserve Component rate would increase by the same percentage. It would also provide an accruable month per month active duty rate for mobilized members of the Selected Reserve so that individuals called up two or more times could accrue active duty MGIB benefits up to the maximum allowable by law (36 months at $1075 per month currently). Further it would provide 10-year portability of Chapter 1607 benefits upon separation from service or retirement.
Five cosponsoring members of Congress spoke passionately about the need for this legislation: Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Reps. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., John Boozman, R-Ark., Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., and Stephanie Herseth, D-S.D.
AUSA will support this legislation which will give Reserve Component personnel equitable educational benefits.
Army Chief of Staff: Troop Surge Erodes Readiness
Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker and Secretary Francis Harvey appeared before several defense oversight committees recently to discuss the Army’s fiscal 2008 budget and the fiscal 2007 emergency funding bill.
At a Feb. 14 hearing before the House Armed Services Committee to testify on the Army’s request for $130.1 billion for fiscal 2008, Gen. Schoomaker said, “We’re not going to put any force into theater that is not properly trained and equipped, therefore ‘scurry’ is a kind word in terms of the machinations we go through to make this happen.”
Committee Chairman Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said, “I remain apprehensive about the effect of the Iraq troop increase upon our readiness and the related strategic risk; in other words our ability to fight elsewhere if called upon.”
Gen. Schoomaker said the nation could afford to increase the size of the Army to 547,000 soldiers in the active force over the next five year and meet the cost of continuing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. “Since we are at war, and since the commander-in-chief has made a decision that I support, we have to put our priority on those soldiers that are in contact with the enemy, and that’s where my priority would go.”
Earlier, Secretary Harvey and Gen. Schoomaker appeared before the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee to testify on the $45 billion request to cover war costs in the current fiscal year.
The $45 billion includes adding 21,500 soldiers and Marines to secure Baghdad and al Anbar province, but does not request money for the coming fiscal year in this effort.
The cost of the “plus-up,” in the words on a budget briefing slide, is estimated to be $5.6 billion.
The supplemental for fiscal 2007 would also accelerate the fielding of two Army brigade combat teams and begin building the infrastructure the larger Army will need, as well as equipping them.
Committee Chairman Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said at the Feb. 9 hearing, “There is no question about the enthusiasm of the troops … I’m inspired by them when I meet them in the field or in the hospitals, wherever I go, as you are. But we can’t confuse that with our ability to respond.”
Gen. Schoomaker told the committee that the Army would be filing at Congress’ request an $11 billion unfunded requirements list for its consideration. Later in the hearing, he again said the Army would need between $13 billion and $14 billion for at least two years to replace battle-damaged equipment and losses when the war ended.
He added in answer to a question if defense spending rose to 5 percent of Gross Domestic Product “what it would allow us to do in absence of the war, would allow us to accelerate the replacement of equipment and the building of the Army in the way that it needs to be built.”
In a hearing yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Schoomaker said that the increase of 17,500 Army combat troops in Iraq represents only the “tip of the iceberg” and will potentially require thousands of additional troops and trainers, as well as equipment – further eroding the Army’s readiness to respond to other world contingencies.
He said, "We are having to go to some extraordinary measures to ensure we can respond," he said, but he added that even then he could not guarantee the combat units would receive all the translators, civil affairs soldiers and other support troops they request. "We are continuing today to get requests for forces that continue to stress us."
He also made it clear that he had raised concerns in advance about the President’s plan to deploy additional troops to Iraq because it would further deplete Army units at home. "We laid out . . . exactly what the risks are in terms of other contingencies . . . to include my concerns about the lack of adequate dwell time," he said, referring to the fact that active-duty soldiers now spend only about a year at home between 12-month war zone rotations. Gen. Schoomaker did note that “our mission now is to support the commander in chief.”
House Defense Subcommittee Chairman Outlines Plans to Stop Troop Surge
Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense said yesterday that he plans to place a series of restrictions to the President’s $100 billion emergency supplemental spending bill that will stop the President’s troop increase in Iraq as well as achieve other objectives.
Rep. Murtha said he is considering:
--provisions that would restrict President Bush’s ability to extend the tours of U.S. forces in Iraq or send troops that have not had a year between tours to retrain or re-equip;
--placing restrictions that would encourage the Administration to accelerate its civilian efforts to resolve the situation in Iraq by shifting funds from the military to the State Department’s civilian teams in charge of reconstruction efforts;
--targeting the large number of private defense contractors in Iraq by cutting 10 percent from the supplemental request for operations and maintenance to decrease the military’s dependence on the contractors;
--requiring the destruction of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq as well as the closure of the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba;
--requiring the removal of U.S. troops from the Green Zone in Iraq; and,
--prohibiting the U.S. from establishing permanent military bases in Iraq.
In response to Rep. Murtha, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R- Ohio said in a statement, “While American troops are fighting Islamic terrorists thousands of miles away, it is unthinkable that the United States Congress would move to discredit their mission, cut off their reinforcements, and deny them the resources they need to succeed and return home safely.”
All this as the House concludes three days of debate and are prepared to vote on a non-binding resolution opposing the deployment of additional troops to Iraq. The Senate has scheduled a procedural vote on Saturday that would allow debate to begin on their version of the resolution.
Opponents to the President’s planned “surge” cut across both aisles of the House and Senate.
Answer to Military Trivia
LTG Leslie McNair was one of the highest ranking American officers killed in World War II. McNair had been commander of Army ground forces and was responsible for training of all components of the active Army, Army Reserve, and National Guard. As frequently as he could, he visited the fronts and was wounded in Tunisia. McNair was observing the 30th Infantry Division’s preparations for deployment in 1944 when the Army Air Corps accidentally dropped bombs on his position and he was killed. He was posthumously promoted to full general in 1945. Ironically, his son, Colonel Douglas McNair, chief of staff of the 77th Division, was killed two weeks later by a sniper on Guam.
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