Iraq war veterans in Congress
Stars & Stripes’ Leo Shane has conversations with the eight Iraq veterans elected to Congress this season and their commitment to their fellow soldiers and Marines;
“I think you’ll see the House Armed Services Committee become more of a war committee than it has been in the last few years,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who served with the Marines in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
“We need to be more focused on Iraq and Afghanistan. And we need to make the military a leaner, meaner fighting machine.”
Hunter and Colorado Republican Rep. Mike Coffman are the only two returning Iraq veterans in the House, but they’ll be joined by six freshman lawmakers with current war experience, including three who’ve been appointed to the House Armed Services Committee.
“If you’ve been in the military, you can take policy proposals and think about how that change is going to play out, not from an academic standpoint but from an experience standpoint,” said Rep. Tim Griffin, R-Ark., one of those three newcomers and a major in the Army Reserve.
“It helps to understand what troops go through, what families go through on deployment. As someone who is still talking to those troops, that’s a perspective that can help across the board.”
Fellow freshman committee member Florida Rep. Allen West, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, said he hopes to spearhead efforts to review the military’s rules of engagement in Afghanistan as soon as the new legislative session begins, calling some of the restrictions on battlefield troops unfair and unsafe.
“With some of the rules we’ve placed on them, we might as well start handing out traffic tickets at the Daytona 500,” he said. “I’ll push for oversight hearings on that right away, because we need to listen to the complaints of the troops on the ground.”
I think with Hunter and West in the lead, we’re going to see some common sense coming out Congress for the first time. Still, they have to remember that Congress legislates and the President executes. The military has only one commander-in-chief and Congress can’t try to drive this war from the backseat like the last few legislative sessions.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Terror War, Veterans in politics
And yet, where was the media on the holly graf case? I guess causing millions of dollars of damage to your ship(s) or physically assaulting crew members is not news. /sarc off
What the heck? I was leaving a comment on the Enterprise story and it ended up here. this is not the first time one of my comments was misdirected. And just in case this one is misdirected too, it was intended for the Iraq war veterans in congress posting…
If Duncan Hunter is anything like his dad (also named Duncan Hunter, by the way), I think we’re in good hands.
I wanted to vote for Duncan (the dad) for the GOP Primary in 2008, but he wasn’t a “real candidate” and so he had dropped off the ballot by the time the primary was held in my state.
I would ordinarily agree with congress not trying to run this particular show. But they need to. Nobama refuses to do so, and someone needs to take charge. If Nobama won’t they must. The penalty for failure will not be minor.
“I think with Hunter and West in the lead, we’re going to see some common sense coming out Congress for the first time.”
We can only hope, Jonn.
Question for the new Iraq veterans in congress –
Lindsay Graham has proposed the idea of maintaining permanent bases in both Iraq and Afghanistan. If this comes to the floor, will our new veteran congressmen approve the funding for it? After all, congress controls the purse strings.