[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 38 (Tuesday, March 6, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2650-S2651]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          VETERANS HEALTH CARE

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I listened to the majority leader talk a 
few minutes ago about going out to do his morning exercise and hearing 
once again of nine soldiers who were killed today in Iraq and the heavy 
burden all of us have as we sit and listen to the debate about Iraq and 
how we should proceed and how we cannot ever forget the burden it 
places on so many families and will continue to be on so many families 
for years to come.
  I have been out on this floor several times to talk about the 
administration's failure to care for our troops. I am sure it is not 
going to be my last time; in fact, I am positive it will not be my last 
time. I am going to keep talking about these men and women and their 
families who have been impacted so dramatically and what we are doing 
as a nation to make sure we are there for them every step of the way. 
Unfortunately, the list of failures is very long--too long. Recently, 
we heard about the obstacles of service men and women with traumatic 
brain injuries when they return home from battle. I have seen these men 
and women. I have watched what happens to them. It is not a couple of 
days. It is not a couple of months. It is a lifetime of dealing with a 
traumatic brain injury and how it impacts them, their families, their 
ability to be able to be productive, their family's ability to be able 
to put food on the table and continue to care for the person. It is a 
long-term cost. It is part of the cost of the war, and it is a burden 
we should all be sharing and as of yet have not been sharing.
  We have heard about the shameful treatment of patients at Walter Reed 
Hospital. We have all felt so compassionate as we listened to these men 
and women and the squalid conditions they lived in. I am here to tell 
my colleagues, this is a syndrome, the ``Walter Reed'' syndrome. It is 
not just at Walter Reed. We are hearing from men and women across the 
country who have been impacted by this war and have been sort of the 
forgotten stepchildren of this war, left in a facility somewhere, and 
their families are struggling every single day, every single minute to 
deal with these young men and women. Sometimes they are older. I have 
talked to men and women who are in their 50s who are members of the 
Guard and Reserve who have been impacted. Some are grandparents.
  This morning the President announced that one of our former 
colleagues, Senator Bob Dole, will join with former Secretary of Health 
and Human Services Donna Shalala, who will cochair a panel to look into 
the problems at the Department of Defense and the veterans health care 
system. I am pleased the President finally, after 4 years, is putting 
an emphasis on this crisis. I think he has chosen two very well-
qualified individuals to lead this panel, but I remain very concerned.
  First of all, let me remind everybody that the President received 
recommendation after recommendation from panel after panel during this 
administration, and time and time again he refused to implement their 
suggestions or simply ignored them. We see that on the Senate floor 
today. We are out here debating the 9/11 Commission. They released 
their findings years ago. Few of them have been implemented. It has 
taken a shift in power from Republicans to Democrats to finally 
implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations.
  Even more recently, the Iraq Study Group, another bipartisan, highly 
regarded commission, released its findings on a path forward in Iraq. 
The President applauded the members of the group, said they were great, 
but he has ignored their recommendations. Instead, he has left it up to 
us in Congress to try to bring a new direction to the war in Iraq.
  So we are right, I believe, to be wary of this new step from the 
President--two good people, Bob Dole, Donna Shalala, and another highly 
regarded commission to look into this. I know those members will take 
their time and evaluate everything. But once they make their 
recommendations, my question to all of us is: What will the President 
do with them? The President knows how to talk the talk, but I am pretty 
worried he doesn't know how to walk the walk.
  I am here this morning to say our troops don't need any more 
rhetoric. They do need a lot of action. That is why the Senate 
Democrats are determined to address these problems, not just at Walter 
Reed--of course at Walter Reed but beyond that--through comprehensive 
action aimed at taking care of the men and women who serve us from the 
battlefield all the way to their local VA and for a lifetime, if that 
is what it takes.
  We need decisive action, not commission after commission and report 
after report that the President can simply choose to ignore. I hope 
this commission will, as well as the group actually who has been set up 
by Secretary Gates, who has responded, I believe, in a strong manner, I 
hope they come forward with positive ideas that will benefit our 
troops. But I also promise to our troops, to our men and women, to our 
veterans, and to all their families that we in this body are not going 
to sit idly by and wait for another commission report or for this 
President to act.
  Lost in the news coverage last week of this whole Walter Reed fiasco 
was a report on the President's failure to provide adequate mental 
health care for our Armed Forces. That report which was lost in all of 
this was a military psychologist-led task force, and they told us 30 
percent of our troops meet standards for having a mental disorder, but 
less than half of them ever receive care. Thirty percent of the men and 
women we send to Iraq and Afghanistan come home with what is termed a 
mental disorder. Yet less than half of them ever receive care. The 
stories I hear from these troops and from their families and the people 
whom I talk to are heartbreaking.
  My staff this past week spoke to one soldier who returned from his 
second tour in Iraq and is suffering from a severe case of post-
traumatic stress disorder. He said that at his hospital, if you are not 
missing a limb, you are virtually invisible. If you are not missing a 
limb, you are virtually invisible. To me, that is appalling, and I fear 
that is not an isolated case. Sometimes those in need choose not to 
seek help, but for many of them, the ones who want and need mental 
health care or who their families know need mental health care and are 
trying to get them into the system, the services haven't been 
available.
  Amazingly, only 40 percent of the Army and Navy's Active-Duty, 
licensed clinical psychologist positions are filled. Only 40 percent of 
them are even filled. The psychologists who are on staff report being 
worked to the bone and having a low motivation for work. I talked to a 
psychologist myself recently on a visit, and he told me he was doing 
the same thing he did during the Vietnam war, and he said to me: I 
don't know if I can do this anymore. These psychologists are worked to 
the bone and they are tired. They are tired because they see men and 
women who are not getting the care and they are worried they can't keep 
up--almost 4 years into this war, 4 years into this war. To me, this is 
so unacceptable.
  It is unacceptable that there are severe staffing shortages in mental 
health care when men and women need help. An equally troubling 
conclusion of the report--that was lost last week because we are so 
focused on Walter Reed, but I think we need to focus on it--was that 
our National Guard and Reserve Forces are being particularly hit hard 
by the shortage in mental health care. We know that Guard and Reserve 
members come from some of our smallest communities, and they have 
sacrificed so much for this country. They have left loved ones and left

[[Page S2651]]

their jobs for months to go over and police an Iraqi civil war. For the 
President's escalation plan, now we are seeing many of them being 
forced to go back a second, third time--and I even talked to one 
soldier who is going back the fourth time--without the necessary break. 
These brave men and women accepted these realities without complaint. 
Two to one, they say to me: I am honored to serve my country.
  Despite all that has been asked of them and all they have given, this 
administration is not providing the mental health care they need.
  However disturbing these findings are--and they are horribly 
disturbing--the worst aspect is that there has been report after report 
after report, year after year after year, detailing the lack of mental 
health care.
  Last year, as I have said on the floor before, the Government 
Accountability Office found similar problems. Last spring, in an 
unusually candid interview--almost a year ago now--the VA's Under 
Secretary for Health Policy Coordination, Dr. Frances Murphy, said 
mental health care services are inadequate and that when services are 
available, ``waiting lists render that care virtually inaccessible.''
  This is the President's administration, his Veterans' Administration 
and Under Secretary there, who has been telling us for almost a year 
now that waiting lists render mental health care services virtually 
inaccessible. What has this President's response been? Total silence. I 
ask: How does that fall on the ears of these soldiers and their 
families?
  This administration has known about these problems for years. But we 
have seen no changes and no improvements.
  With minimal amounts of sleep, our service men and women work longer 
days than you and I can imagine. They see things none of us should ever 
witness: bodies blown to pieces, mutilation, the blood of their fellow 
soldiers on the streets of a country we have no place being.
  All of this is for a war we were misled into supporting. There were 
no weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein was never connected to 
al-Qaida, and nobody can say we are spreading democracy to Iraq today. 
In truth, we are fighting a war with no cause.
  These stresses and images from a pointless conflict take a toll on 
our troops. It takes a toll on their families. They suffer mental 
stress, which is no surprise to anybody; it ought to be expected. As 
Americans across this country--but especially Senators--it is our 
solemn duty, as those who have not seen the horrors of battle, to care 
for those who have. Even more so, as the one who sent Americans to 
Iraq, it is the duty of the President.
  Providing mental health care for our children falls under this duty--
a duty that, sadly, this President has failed to fulfill.
  So I came to the floor this morning to remind my colleagues--my 
Republican colleagues and this President--actions speak louder than 
words. Talk does not improve the quality of the living conditions, and 
it doesn't make adequate mental health care available. Talk is cheap. 
Eventually, after a lot of talk and no action, words catch up with you. 
That is what we are seeing today. The Bush administration says they 
have provided for our Active-Duty warriors and our veterans, but story 
after story, report after report proves otherwise.
  Unfortunately, it is pretty clear to all of us now that from 
enlistment to retirement, this administration has failed our troops. It 
is time for us to take action. I look forward to working with all of my 
colleagues on this floor to have action and not just words. I don't 
want to see report after report, all this year long and a year from 
now, stories that continue. We have a responsibility, when we send men 
and women overseas to fight for us, that we are on this floor fighting 
for them.
  This Congress, so far, has failed to do that in many ways. This White 
House has done it day after day. I call on all of my colleagues to step 
up at every step of the way as we approve bill after bill, supplemental 
budgets, authorization bills, to stand up and speak out for our troops 
and no longer ignore the reality of this war.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MARTINEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. MARTINEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to 
address the Senate in morning business and the time be discounted from 
the minority's time.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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