Dwell Time
Floor Speech
DWELL TIME -- (Senate - September 19, 2007)
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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I rise in support of the Webb amendment. What is the Senator from Virginia, a Marine Corps veteran from Vietnam, trying to do? It is actually easy to state. He wants to make sure that when our troops are deployed, they have at least as much time home between deployments as they do the length of the deployment. If they are deployed for a year, they will have a year at home before they are deployed again. If they are deployed 15 months, they will have 15 months at home before they are deployed again.
Madam President, you have been to Iraq and I have been there, too--three times. I do not profess to be an expert on the military. That is not a field of my training or expertise, but I talk to those who are. The last time I visited Iraq, I went to Patrol Base Murray, south of Baghdad 12 miles, part of the surge, the Third Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, GA, and saw the Illinois soldiers and others. I had a little lunch with them.
As I was starting to leave, one of the officers came over to me and spoke to me privately. Do you know what he told me? He said: Senator, 15 months is too long. These troops have to be on guard every moment of every day for roadside bombs and snipers and other dangers.
He said: After 12 months, I work so hard to keep them on their toes so they come home safe and protect the soldiers who are with them. Fifteen months is too long. He told me: I am a career soldier. My wife knew what we were getting into long ago. So I leave, but it is tough on my family.
He said: When I left Fort Stewart, GA, my daughter was in the sixth grade. When I get back home, she will be in the eighth grade. I will have missed a year in her life. That is the price we pay.
He said: These young soldiers with babies at home, they are e-mailing their wives every single day. They are hearing how the babies are growing up and the problems the family is having. At the end of the year, they can't wait to go home, and we tell them: Give us 3 more months.
I said: What about the 12 months in between deployments?
He said: It is not enough; 12 months is not enough time to reconstitute our unit, retrain them, equip them, give them time with their families so they can get their lives back together. Twelve months is not enough.
I said: How much time do you need?
He said: Twice that. Give us 2 years. That is what it takes.
That is the reality of this war on the ground. So when we hear the arguments being made by Senators that somehow we should not, as a Senate, be sticking our nose into the business of how they manage the military overseas, I am sorry, but that is part of our constitutional obligation. We do not just declare the war and send the money; we have responsibilities that reach far beyond that.
Over the years, Congress has spoken to the number of troops our country will have. It has spoken to whether those troops can be deployed overseas. It has passed laws restricting Presidents from sending troops overseas
without at least 4 months or 6 months of training. We have restricted the roll of women in the military. Time and again, Congress has spoken under its constitutional authority to make certain our military is treated properly. That is part of my responsibility as a Senator. It is part of every Senator's responsibility.
Calling this micromanagement is unfair to our troops. Our soldiers and their families are making more sacrifices than any of us serving in this Chamber today. They are risking their lives at this very moment. All they ask for is a little more time to be with their families, a little more time to get their unit combat ready before it is sent out again.
Senator Webb knows this story because he lived it in Vietnam as a marine. He knows it as a father of a soldier who is in Iraq today. We should know it too, and we should understand something as well. It is true, as someone once said, war is hell, but politicians should not make it any worse, and we are making it worse when we push these soldiers to the limit.
Look at the numbers coming back to us: Divorce rates among our soldiers now reaching record highs, suicide rates higher than any time since Vietnam, cash incentives to bring people into the military and keep them at a record level of $10,000 and $20,000, waiving the requirements so we can fill the ranks with people who have not graduated from high school or have some criminal records. These are the realities of the Army today.
For the President to stand and boldly say, ``I am sending the troops into battle'' is to ignore the reality. Many of our warriors are weary. Having fought the good fight and stood up for this country, they deserve for this Senate to stand up for them and adopt the Webb amendment.
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Mr. DURBIN. Would the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. CORNYN. I yield for a question.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, in the 2004 Presidential campaign, I might ask the Senator from Texas, there was a group from Texas that attacked Senator John Kerry and said he was undeserving of the commendations and decorations he received for his courage in fighting in Vietnam and raised questions about others who served in the military who were part of his swift boat operation. One would have to say, by any stretch, that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were attacking the honor and integrity of one of our colleagues who served with honor in the Vietnam war.
I would like to ask the Senator from Texas if he is prepared to remain consistent and if he is also prepared to amend his amendment to repudiate the activities, actions, and statements of the Texas-based Swift Boat Veterans for Truth organization with their unwarranted attacks on our colleague, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, during the 2004 campaign.
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I am not willing to amend my amendment, as the distinguished majority whip requests. He keeps emphasizing this is a Texas-based group. I have no idea whether it is. But let me tell my colleague what the differences are between this ad and what MoveOn.Org tried to do to this good soldier and the difference between that and a political campaign.
Senator Kerry chose to run for President of the United States. You and I and others may disagree with the tactics employed by third parties in the course of a Presidential campaign, but this is not a Presidential campaign. General Petraeus did not volunteer to run for political office and subject himself to the spears we all sometimes catch as part of the political process. All this general has sworn to do is to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States and to protect this country from attacks from our enemies.
So I would say it is apples and oranges to compare what happens in a political campaign with the attack on this general in such a premeditated and vicious way as MoveOn.Org did before he was to deliver his testimony before the Congress.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, my friend and colleague from Texas, Senator Cornyn, has offered this amendment before. I so stated on the floor before, and I will state again, I respect GEN David Petraeus. I voted to confirm him as the commanding general of our forces in Iraq. He has served our country with distinction. It has been my good fortune to spend time with him in Iraq on two different occasions. Both times I have felt he was forthcoming and answered questions and demonstrated time and again that he was willing to wear our country's uniform and risk his life. I think the language chosen in this ad by this organization was wrong and unfortunate.
Having said that, I am troubled by the conclusion of my colleague from Texas that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth could attack Senator JOHN KERRY for his valor and courage fighting for America in Vietnam and that for some reason we shouldn't repudiate that attack; that it is OK because it happened, as my colleague said, during a political campaign. If this is about the honor and integrity of our Armed Forces, past and present, whether it takes place during a political campaign or at half time at a football game should make no difference. If the Senator from Texas believes we should stand on a regular basis and condemn those who would attack the honor and integrity of warriors who have served this country with valor in past wars and present wars, then he should be consistent. It is totally inconsistent for him to pick one organization and to ignore the obvious: There are others who have done the same thing.
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is a classic example of an organization that distorted the truth about Senator JOHN KERRY and others who served our country during the Vietnam war. The fact that they did it during a Presidential campaign should have absolutely nothing to do with it, if this is a matter of principle. However, if it is not a matter of principle and something else, then you would pick and choose those organizations you want to condemn or repudiate. Unfortunately, the Senator from Texas has picked one organization. He doesn't want to talk about the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. He certainly doesn't want to repudiate them. I think they should be repudiated. What they did cast a shadow on the combat decorations given to others during the course of that war.
What Senator JOHN KERRY did was to volunteer to serve our country, put his life on the line, face combat, stand up and fight for his fellow sailors on that swift boat, and then come back to the criticism, the chief criticism of a group known as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
Now, if the Senator from Texas is going to be filled with rage over those who would cast any disparaging remarks about our military, he should be consistent. He should amend his amendment--and I will seek to do it for him, incidentally--to add the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth as a group that should be repudiated. If we are going to get into this business of following the headlines, responding to advertisements and repudiating organizations, let's at least be consistent.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, will my friend yield?
Mr. DURBIN. I will yield.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I wish to thank my colleague very much for pointing out the inconsistency of an attack on one organization that I guess my friend doesn't admire anyway, and that is his right. It is also our right to speak the truth on this floor. The fact of the matter is the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth went after a war hero and told stories to the American people that were not true and tried to sully a hero's reputation.
But he is not the only Senator who was attacked, as my friend remembers what happened to our colleague, Max Cleland. I know he does. Here is a veteran who gave three limbs for his country--three limbs. It is harder for him, for the first 2 hours of every day, to get ready for the day than it is for the Senator from Texas or myself or the Senator from Illinois to do our work for a month. Yet this man was viciously attacked and his patriotism called into question. Oh, yes, my friend might say, it was during a political campaign. It was disgusting. So we raise these issues.
What I wish to ask my friend is this: I was thinking--as the Senator from Texas, my friend and colleague, was speaking--I was thinking about some retired generals who spoke out against this war and said they were called traitors and worse. So I am looking at ways to incorporate into this a condemnation of anyone who would attack a retired general for speaking out against a war because I think that was low and it was horrible. It was frightening because, in a way, it was saying to these retired generals that they had no voice, no independent voice.
So I wish to thank my colleague, and I wonder if he recalls these generals. I will have more details as I put together my second-degree amendment as well.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I would say in response to my colleague from California that if we are going to get into the business of standing up for members of the military, past and present, who were attacked for their positions on issues, then so be it. Let's be consistent about it. Let's remember our fellow colleague from Georgia, Senator Max Cleland, and remember what happened to him, when someone, during the course of a campaign, ran an ad suggesting he was somehow consorting with Osama bin Laden--a man who had lost three limbs to a grenade in Vietnam and who was attacked in a way that none of us will ever be able to forget.
The Senator from Texas includes in his whereas clauses, his sense-of-the-Senate clauses, to strongly condemn any effort to attack the honor and integrity of all the members of the U.S. Armed Forces. I hope if that is his true goal, he will allow us to amend his resolution to not only include the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth but those who attacked Senator Max Cleland during the course of his campaign.
I don't think the fact that it happens during a campaign absolves anybody from the responsibility of telling the truth and honoring those who served. In this case, two Democrats, Senator Max Cleland and Senator JOHN KERRY, were attacked, and there wasn't a long line of people on the floor to condemn the attackers. Now that the Senator from Texas has decided we should bring this up as part of the Defense authorization bill, I hope he will be consistent, and I hope he will consistently stand up for the reputations of the men and women in uniform, starting with General Petraeus but including those who served in this war and other wars in the past.
Each of them deserves our respect. I might add, parenthetically--it is worth saying--even if we disagree with their political views, they still deserve our respect. To attack their honor and integrity is wrong.
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