Our servicemembers make our military great and it is our responsibility to make sure they are taken care of.
Mr. Chairman, as you know today marks the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War and I think it's important to note that today at this hearing with the senior enlisted personnel and at this time I would like to ask for a brief moment of silence to remember those who lost their life in this conflict.
Mr. Chairman, I always look forward to this hearing. These individuals always give us the best picture for what those on the front lines are dealing with.
We talk a lot about facilities, equipment and strategy, but it is the men and women like the ones sitting before us that really make our military what it is today.
I truly believe that our servicemembers make our military great and it is our responsibility to make sure they are taken care of. That is exactly why I started the Military Family Caucus so we can better address the issues these gentlemen will raise today.
I want to make sure we are doing enough to help our servicemembers because the last thing they need to worry about when at war is what is going on back home.
In all of your testimonies, you raised many issues that confront your services such as family services, recruiting, retention and transition. I want you all to use this as an opportunity to tell us what we have gotten right and what we need to improve to ease the burden that is placed on our servicemembers and their families.
In addition, as you all are aware March 1st marked the beginning of sequestration which CBO predicts will reduce GDP growth by 0.6 percentage points this year alone and estimates that up to 1.4 million jobs are at stake if sequestration is fully implemented.
In addition to CBO, a George Mason University study predicts it could be as many as 2.14 million jobs lost.
Sequestration was included in the Budget Control Act to force Republicans and Democrats to work together to resolve our fiscal problems.
While servicemember pay is protected from sequestration, I want to hear how it will impact them in other ways because it appears that many servicemembers will have to back fill civilian positions while civilians are furloughed. I want to know how this will affect morale and if you think it will have an effect on retention.
Again, thank you for your service and I yield back.
Source: U.S. Department of HCA
