News Conference With Senator Patty Murray And Senator Richard Durbin

Statement

News Conference With Senator Patty Murray And Senator Richard Durbin

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SEN. DURBIN: I want to thank Senator Murray. She's been a real leader when it comes to veterans care. I can recall not that long ago when she came to the floor and said that the Bush administration had shortchanged the VA budget by at least a billion dollars. The Bush administration was in full denial for about 60 days and then they conceded she was right and asked for the billion dollars that they needed.

They weren't prepared to face the reality. They haven't been prepared to face the reality since the invasion of Iraq, and the reality is that 26,000 American soldiers have been injured, many of them seriously injured.

We made a promise to these men and women in uniform that if they would take an oath to serve their country and risk their lives, we'd stand by them when they came home. Unfortunately, we haven't done it, and many of them have returned to fight bureaucracy and to find themselves on their own trying to find advocates and counsel to work their way through the mess that Washington has created and a mess which we hope will be undone, a little bit, by our efforts this morning.

I've been, as Senator Murray has, to many veterans hospitals, visited many wounded veterans, and I can tell you, I sense their frustration -- frustration not only over their wounds and recovering and the time it takes, but also over the fact that they've had to battle this bureaucracy. It's bad enough for our soldiers to fight our enemies overseas, but to come home wounded and fight their government is unacceptable.

What we're trying to do is to make this a much better process and one that really takes into consideration that these veterans today have special challenges. I focused on one part of this several years ago, the posttraumatic stress disorder. It was something that I had noticed was popping up more and more. And as I talk to returning soldiers and to their families, I have found that, unfortunately, the Veterans Administration wasn't as sensitive to this as they should be. Since then, I've really pushed for more money in this area, I've attended counseling sessions at VA hospitals with returning veterans, I've spoken to families; I've really learned a lot more about this condition.

You know, 30 or 40 years ago, we were in complete denial. If a soldier came home with battle fatigue or whatever they called it at that time, it was just considered a misfortune, and in the worst case was branded cowardice. Now we know that soldiers who were exposed to stress over long periods of time really need a helping hand, many of them do, to return to normal life, and if they don't get that helping hand, they can see a lot of problems: Failed marriages and addictions and just general difficulties in finding and keeping a job. That's happened to previous generations; it shouldn't happen again.

So this Wounded Warriors Act is an attempt to try to bring more skill and more caring to our veterans who have returned. For the first time, we are providing a full range of care: Medical care and job placement services for family members; providing care for severely injured service members; establishments of Centers of Excellence and the prevention, diagnosis, mitigation, treatment and rehab of traumatic brain injury and posttraumatic stress disorder; improvements in the disability system for service members; improved housing facilities.

This traumatic brain injury issue is another one that I really faced foursquare in the last several months. I started working with one particular soldier who -- his name is Eric Edmundson, and he was at a hospital in Chicago. And I worked with him and his family. He's gone through the military hospitals, he's gone through the VA hospitals, and they said there was nothing that they could do. He ended up, thank goodness, due to the hard work of his family, at the Rehab Institute of Chicago. On June 30th, I was proud to stand outside the door of that hospital and watch Eric Edmundson, who had been told he'd spend the rest of his life in a wheel chair, stand up and walk out of that hospital. It was a miracle in terms of where he'd been and what he'd gone through.

But when I think of the hundreds if not thousands of other soldiers who are facing the same challenge, I hope that we will rise to the challenge as we have with Eric Edmundson. We need to stand by these soldiers. They stood by America, and this Wounded Warriors Act says that we're going to take this war seriously when it comes to our promises to our soldiers. We're going to make sure that when they return, if they need helping hand, America will keep its word and stand by them.

SEN. MURRAY: Questions?

Q What -- I know you said you haven't seen the report, but what -- (off mike)?

SEN. MURRAY: Well, we saw a number of challenges. We've addressed some of them in the wounded -- well many of them in the Wounded Warriors Act, but the biggest challenge is that the disability ratings between the Department of Defense and Department of Affairs (sic) leaves men and women, soldiers, men and women who have served us, in this abyss of how do you rectify the different disability ratings.

We have directed the DOD and VA to come back to us with a recommendation for a change by January 1 of this year. I don't exactly know how the Dole-Shalala commission will look at that, but that is a significant part. And I will say this, we can pass legislation, the commission can put forward recommendations, but unless this administration directs DOD and VA to do it and tells them that they will have the resources to make that happen, it's just going to be another piece of legislation and another commission report.

That's been my frustration for four and a half years as the administration has not come forward and taken an active part in making sure that the policies and the resources are there, and in fact, as Senator Durbin said, have been on the opposite side, saying, "No, we don't need any more money" -- yet we know we're sending a million and a half men and women to Iraq and Afghanistan -- and not recognizing that you can't just do this on the cheap; you actually need to have the resources available.

Hopefully the commission report will come out with some additional recommendations about care -- health care for family members and health care for -- extending health care for men and women, particularly those who are trying to get back on their feet or get a home or deal with medical problems. Again, that's not cheap. That doesn't just happen with words. It has to happen with resources.

So we will be listening closely to whether or the president and the director of the OMB and all of the administration come forward with budgets to back up what this commission is recommending, as well as the policy.

SEN. DURBIN: Can I mention one other thing that I'm hoping? If you would have asked the Veterans Administration six years ago what their caseload would look like today, they would say we're likely to have a lot of aging soldiers, mainly men, with chronic diseases, like diabetes and hypertension and heart disease, and we'll be ready for them.

Well, look at what they have today. They have a much different caseload. They have returning soldiers and veterans who have been subjected to trauma in ways that we never dreamed of.

In the Vietnam War, one out of three injured soldiers died; in this war, one out of 16, in Iraq and Afghanistan. So many of them are coming home after having suffered severe traumatic injury.

I hope that when this is all said and done, that Senator Dole, whom I respect very much, and Secretary Shalala will be honest about the VA's capacity to deal with these new challenges. I don't think that they are where we want them to be today. I hope they will be very soon.

In the meantime, no soldier should have to wait. No veteran should have to be denied the professional care that they need. And so I hope that they'll address that as well.

Q Senator Durbin --

SEN. DURBIN: Yes.

Q -- (off mike) -- being taken out of the Defense authorization bill, I mean, what prospects do you see --

SEN. DURBIN: It's included in this bill.

SEN. MURRAY: It was added to -- (inaudible) -- yeah.

Q (Off mike) -- the military -- (off mike) -- being passed on the floor today? I mean, what prospects do you see for the Defense authorization bill? Are you saying you -- (off mike) -- brought back to the floor, then?

SEN. DURBIN: Well, as you know, there are some major issues around the Defense authorization bill, and front and center is the war in Iraq and a question about what our policy will be. Leader Reid has said that he wants to return to the Defense authorization bill; it's likely we will in September, when we return.

These two provisions in the Defense authorization bill were certainly time-sensitive, and we're glad that they have been passed now by the Senate. I hope the House will act quickly, and I sincerely hope that the White House will not delay response to this. They should sign this into law very quickly.

Q Senator Durbin, one of the issues in the news today is the big gap between -- in the time of the soldiers' claims -- disability claims are approved. What does this do in terms of closing that gap? I mean, right now I think the wait is six months, the average wait is six months. Does the Wounded Warriors --

SEN. DURBIN: Well, I think I'll let Senator Murray respond to it, because I think this issue relates to the resources of the Veterans Administration, how quickly they respond. She knows that very well.

SEN. MURRAY: Yes. Yeah. And we have tried to address that issue -- it's a resource issue: How many people do you have to process those claims? And we have fought this administration every step of the way to get additional resources: Adding additional money within the supplemental for the first time for VA, meeting the independent budget within our budget. We will have the VA spending bill, appropriations bill on the floor hopefully after the recess to begin to address those resources issues.

But that is mainly a manpower issue, but it's also, you know, the sidebar of having the disability ratings so different and losing records in a lot of other things.

Q But that doesn't get addressed in the Wounded Warriors --

SEN. MURRAY: The Wounded Warriors Act, what it will do that I believe will help alleviate that, besides the resource issues, is put the DOD and the VA at the table for the first time ever to tell them to come up with a disability rating system that works. If you have a disability rating system that matches between the DOD and the VA, we won't have these long lines while men and women go through these long processes to try and get rerated under a VA system that simply translated to them means their benefits checks don't come in.

Q Good morning, Senators. This morning, The Washington Post ran an article about a civilian employee of the Department of Defense who was injured in Iraq, according to troops, but he didn't receive health care from -- or any military benefits. What does the Wounded Warriors Act do to address such Army civilians who are injured in the line of duty?

SEN. MURRAY: I don't know the answer to that specifically. I'm certainly happy to take a look at it. You know, I think anybody who serves our country overseas, we have a responsibility to care for them when they come home. And I don't know if any of the language within this would directly help them, but I'm happy to take a look.

I do want to say one other thing about this report. I think the president has a really unique opportunity, four and a half years into this war, to send a really important message to this nation about the men and women who have served us. I worked in the VA hospital in the state of Washington back in 1972 during the Vietnam War on the psychiatric ward with men and women my age at the time who were coming home from Vietnam, and I'd take the elevator up to the seventh floor, we'd lock doors, going in and working with these 19-, 20-year-old men, mostly men, with what we now call posttraumatic stress syndrome -- that word was not identified at the time -- and I'd walk out on the street afterwards to a very different world that we all remember.

The times have changed in this war.

We have a war that is very unpopular, but we have an American public that is ready to stand up and stand with our men and women who've served us and give them the resources and support they need.

And I think the president has an opportunity to really tap into that with the Dole-Shalala Commission report that is now out, with the bill that we are now moving through on the treatment of Wounded Warriors Act, and with his opening in the Department of Veterans Affairs to actually put in a secretary who is going to be a veterans advocate and who will go to the president and to Congress and speak out for these men and women.

It concerns me that the White House is saying not to expect immediate action on the Dole-Shalala Commission. I would say to the president, the public is waiting. They want you to take action, they're ready to stand with you. Let's move.

Q Following up on her question on the pay raise and defense authorization -- (off mike) -- by removing the pay raise in the defense authorization, putting it on this bill, haven't you taken away the biggest single reason to pass the defense authorization bill and decreased the chances that the Senate will, in fact, pass the defense authorization bill, especially given all the Iraq issues that surround it. In other words, aren't we running the risk of not having a defense authorization bill for the first time in 45-odd years?

SEN. DURBIN: I think the record is that we've passed the defense authorization bill 26 years in a row. I think Senator Warner said that on the floor, and we want to pass it again. There are a lot of provisions in here beyond the pay raise that are important for us to enact. I wouldn't be discouraged by the fact that we're taking it up in September; last year we took it up in November. So it's not an indication that we've given up at all. We want to pass this bill.

I also want to just respond to this question here. My staff tells me that when it comes to civilian employees -- I read the article in The Washington Post -- current Army policy is that civilians are supposed to get military health care, but the administration may not be following through on that. So we're going to check on that. The Wounded Warriors Act does not address that particular issue.

Okay. Thank you.

SEN. MURRAY: Thank you.

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