[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 34 (Wednesday, February 28, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2290-S2291]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          VETERANS HEALTH CARE

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, since this body recessed 10 days ago, I 
have been outraged to see report after report after report detailing 
this administration's complete failure to care for our troops and for 
our veterans. What is worse, since we returned on Monday, I have heard 
several of our Republican colleagues attempt to question our patriotism 
and our support for those troops. So I felt compelled this morning to 
come to the floor to speak up.
  For more than 4 years, this administration has failed to plan for the 
true cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have demanded blind 
loyalty from Congress, asking us for rubberstamps for their emergency 
budgets, avoiding oversight, and pursuing their own strategy in the 
face of criticism from Members of Congress, from generals, and the 
American public. Yesterday Senator Martinez, I thought, encapsulated 
the White House position better than I ever could. He said:

       At a time of war, the Congress should do only one thing, 
     which is to support our President, to try to unite behind our 
     troops and unite behind our effort.

  I couldn't disagree more. As elected Members of Congress, and even as 
mere citizens of this country, we can and we must question the policies 
implemented by our Government. That is our job. It is our 
responsibility. At no time is that more important than in a time of war 
when the lives of our bravest men and women are on the line.
  But my colleagues don't have to take my word for it. General Pace, 
the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a congressional hearing 
recently:

       Our troops understand the need for debate back home and are 
     sophisticated enough to know that debate does not equate to 
     lack of support.

  But that important debate, that important discussion, and all 
oversight was stifled for years. Unfortunately for everyone, for the 
first years of this war Congress was under Republican control and that 
led to a stunning lack of oversight, an outrageous number of 
rubberstamps, and an impotence from this Congress that should shame us 
all.
  Well, those days are over.
  I don't have the time this morning to outline each and every failure 
I have seen by the administration. I don't have the time to detail the 
many ways the administration has failed our troops, our men and women 
who are serving us. I don't have time to detail how many ways the 
administration has failed the men and women who serve us when they come 
home and go into the VA system.
  So instead I want my colleagues to know I am going to be here on this 
floor speaking frequently and loudly, because I think it is so 
important to get this administration once and for all to pay the troops 
and our veterans the attention they deserve 4 years into this war in 
Iraq. My Democratic colleagues and I are committed to supporting our 
troops from the battlefield all the way back to their local VA and 
everywhere in between. We have worked very hard to ensure they get the 
care they deserve, the care they have earned.
  My real worry is that this administration continues to be slow to 
react to these problems and rarely, if ever, takes proactive measures 
to stop the many problems before they even begin. From sending our 
troops to war without the critical armor they need to protect 
themselves, to housing them in squalor at Walter Reed as we heard about 
a week ago, to leaving them to fend for themselves when they need 
mental health care, this administration is utterly failing our 
servicemembers, our veterans, and all of their families.
  Nowhere is that failure more apparent than in the handling of what 
will one day, I believe, become known as the signature wound of this 
war, and that is traumatic brain injury. Right now it is estimated that 
10 percent of our Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have suffered from 
these traumatic brain injuries because of their service. One of the big 
problems with traumatic brain injury, or TBI, is it is an unseen wound 
and too often it is misdiagnosed. Many times, unless a servicemember is 
involved directly in an IED incident and is bleeding, he or she won't 
be documented as having been involved in that explosion. Even if they 
are two or three tanks behind where the IED exploded, they can get the 
impact and be a victim of TBI and not know it. As a result, I believe 
the actual number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with TBI will be 
even higher than the statistics we are now seeing.
  We owe it to these men and women in uniform to come on this floor and 
say: We are going to do everything we can to help you. We should say: 
We will screen for TBI, we will document TBI, and we will not fail to 
treat veterans suffering from the signature wound of this war. It is 
clear our system today is not catching all of the TBI patients this war 
is producing.
  I hope every one of my colleagues saw the special broadcast last 
evening. ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff detailed his own experience with 
a traumatic brain injury. I was personally moved by Bob Woodruff's 
struggle with his injury, by his family's unrelenting hope for 
recovery, and their ongoing work toward triumph over this horrible 
situation.
  While Bob Woodruff has seen a tremendous recovery from his horrendous 
injury, I fear the care he received has not been duplicated for 
thousands of other troops when they return home. He detailed several 
cases of soldiers who were suffering from injuries not unlike his own, 
and the lack of care they received was clear when they left our 
flagship care centers for some of the smaller local hospitals. While so 
many of us know this injury has become the signature wound of this war, 
I fear last night's program once again showed us that this 
administration and the VA in particular has not stepped to the plate to 
handle the crush of troops with brain injuries who are returning from 
war each and every day.
  What is worse, I am very concerned that we do not even know today the 
real number of troops who are suffering from traumatic brain injury. 
The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, the place that gathers 
all of this information on these injuries, has so far refused--
refused--to release it publicly. That information is collected at 
taxpayer expense, and that information, I hope, could provide us with a 
baseline of how many of our troops have suffered from a traumatic brain 
injury. That is a critical and important starting point for dealing 
with these terrible injuries.
  What we do know is that while the Department of Defense claims that 
less than 30,000 troops have been injured during this war, 205,000 
troops have enrolled for care at the VA. Let me say that again. The 
Department of Defense claims that only 30,000 troops--only? That is a 
big number, 30,000 troops--have been injured, but 205,000 troops have 
enrolled for care at the VA. To me, those numbers don't add up. So 
yesterday I asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to provide us with the 
data that has been compiled by the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury 
Center on the actual number of TBI victims. We don't have this 
information yet, but I see no reason why it shouldn't be shared with 
Congress and the American people.
  In addition, I was heartened to hear, I have to say, yesterday that 
the Department of Veterans Affairs, in a long overdue step forward, 
finally announced they will begin screening every recent combat veteran 
for TBI. But we have to do a lot more. We can't simply take the 
Department of Veterans Affairs at their word. Their record of care and 
openness has left a lot to be desired. As every Member of the Senate 
knows, we went through that debate several years ago where they denied 
time and time again they were short-funded and then came and told us: 
Yes, they were indeed billions of dollars short, and we had to provide 
additional dollars in the supplemental to make sure our veterans were 
getting the most basic care. The lines are still long. Veterans are not 
getting care. We are now dealing with a high number of TBI victims of 
this war and we are not dealing with it realistically.

[[Page S2291]]

  We have to develop a system to address traumatic brain injuries, from 
the battlefield all the way back to the VA hospitals and beyond. 
Screening is absolutely critical. Pre- and post-deployment screening 
has to be done. This signature wound has to be a top priority at each 
and every step along the path to recovery for these wounded members of 
the armed services.
  The bottom line is we have not yet offered our brave men and women a 
real plan to take care of them when they come home. The Department of 
Defense and Veterans Affairs must come together to solve these problems 
plaguing the system. Too many of our men and women get lost in the 
transition between the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs. I 
pledge to them and I pledge to our fighting men and women and to all of 
their families that this new Democratic Congress is going to hold them 
accountable for their inaction and finally ensure that we are going to 
give these men and women what they deserve when they come home.
  We hear a lot in this body about who supports the troops. Well, I say 
to my colleagues that each and every one of us has a responsibility to 
support these troops, particularly those who are injured, particularly 
those who come home with TBI and other injuries, not just when they 
come home but far into the future, and we have not yet budgeted 
responsibly to do that. We have not provided the programs to do that. 
We have not done everything we can. This is one Senator who is going to 
keep talking until we get it done.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Georgia is 
recognized.

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