require, you know, human capital to maintain and sustain that and logistics and supply parts that go behind the fuel requirement that has to be delivered and purchased. it goes on and on and the cost associated with that so we look at and ask ourselves, you know, how do we get the best return on this investment so that in the out years, it's the most sustainable with the lowest possible cost while still giving them the exact same capability they need to handle this level of insurgency, so that's a big part, but, again, it -- there's so many variables in the out years. ..

lieutenant colonel is in there. if you have any follow-up questions or information you like to know i would be glad to provide answers to those. in probably 95% of what we do is unclassified. we will work together answers back towards back in terms of if for effectiveness and the data available i don't have available at my fingertips since the track that day to day but i will get that back to use a you can disseminate but it's still realistic about the challenges that lie out there ahead of us

because there are still some out there and there is no question but i can tell you after being on the ground and think about optimistic about the future with this please can hold for the afghan people and i see activities that occurred whether it is out of a trading center in afghans in the league being responsible for training in a training site with a there's a senior afton official engaged with credible ideas how to more efficiently or effectively do something whether it's the attack we saw earlier on the 13th or just a heroic deeds by afghan police giving their lives in this case to save other afghans. i mean, it's fame's two years ago i did not see that i'm much more routinely see and understand. it's the reports they conduct and talk themselves through how they can get bitter about what they do. and again all of this underpinned by leadership with an understanding that leadership

really is the key to making a difference in this country and taken on these development programs to the point we are now starting to bring district police chiefs back and provincial police chiefs back for the refresher courses of three to five weeks being taught by us and everybody working in tandem together. we are starting to see a real difference in their performance and it really does give you a lot of hope for the future of what this country may have ahead of itself. >> once again, thank you and to all of you for joining us. have a good day.

next, a look at how veterans are readjusting to civilian life. the u.s. naval institute and military officers association hosted the discussion at an annual form on providing services for severely injured veterans. [inaudible conversations] >> okay. ladies and gentlemen, we will go ahead and get started. i hope everyone had a chance to get coffee and juice. it's time for the first panel discussion of community reintegration, the challenges back home. directing this panel is our moderator, national security analyst mcfarlane. mrs. mcfarland of year >> frequently on fox business news and numerous radio programs. she's also the host of fox news

dhaka,, one of the internet's most popular national security shows. she served on national security posts for several presidential administrations to include president nixon, president ford and president reagan and received the defense department's highest civilian award for her work in the reagan administration. she's a graduate of george washington university, oxford university and massachusetts institute of technology. concentrating on the nuclear weapons, china and the soviet union. of equal significance, she is the mother of five, proud of all of them, but i'd understand that one of her daughters is a recent graduate 2008 of the naval academy in the surface order business on the west coast. ladies and gentlemen, is my distinct honor and pleasure to introduce ms. mcfarland. [applause] >> thank you for being here. you may not recognize me behind the brunette at fox news.

[laughter] this year's defense from a focus is on the journey back and helping the wounded warriors and their families transition, and the panel this morning is going to take a look at the issues of community integration, the challenges our veterans and their families face, and especially the wounded were years and their particular needs. you know, i am of the vietnam war met generation. i want to ask is anybody here as old as i am of the vietnam era? more than you would think. after the vietnam war that we treated our veterans shamefully. it was an unpopular war and secretary pointed out and it didn't end well. instead of planning ourselves, we blamed the military. when they came home in the 1970's, we did not honor them for their service. we did not adequately care for their families and we did dhaka give them the support and

medical attention they needed. josé war we wanted to forget and so we forgot about them as well. in the 1970's after vietnam, our programs for community integration were few and far between. our veterans and their families suffered from it. it was a stain on the soul of america. when i went into the pentagon with the reagan administration and 1980's, not only had we followed our military force, we have ships that couldn't sail, planes that couldn't fly, we were cannibalizing parts and we get pilots that were not certified to train, but the most shameful thing of all is what they did when they enter the country and met our veterans and saw men who had lost limbs and their prosthesis' didn't fit, people who couldn't get to veterans' hospitals because they were too far away. people who had medical and psychological injuries which were there when it's a sign of weakness and when cap weinberger met some of the junior enlisted they would pay so little that

the qualified for food stamps. we promised ourselves as a nation we would never let that happen again. so here we are today, and we have returning veterans from afghanistan and iraq many of whom have seen three and four and five tours of duty. we have been up war for ten years and many of our returning warriors of serious injuries and disabilities will need help not only integrating society but they will need significant medical care for the rest of their lives. so have we learned from our past mistakes? the good news is as we do wind velo war our national leaders of both parties have pledged the care for the returning war years. there is a new and a general recognition in the country that some are coming back with injuries on the outside as well as on the inside that will be with them for the rest of their lives. our military culture, which is often as i don't have to tell you suffering in silence is now more of the front. our military culture is more up front about the psychological

injuries the troops suffered and over treatment of was never a feeble laughter the previous orman. there's a focus on medical attention and there are programs now to help the transition reintegration civilian employment for our veterans when there were none before and we are going to talk about some of these today. this morning's panel and this afternoon's hammill focusing on employment. but in a lot of ways the integration task we face after the war is going to be more difficult. our active forces as well as reserves have done more combat tours come more frequently than they were designed to do. our guard and reserves have not been used as militia but as forces. many of our military families, husband and wife are both in the service, and that family is double burdened. our women particularly as they returned, half of the women are mothers who've left their children behind to fight. that is an integration issue. our all volunteer force means that the servicemen and women we

have on duty want to be there. they've signed up, but what it means is they are isolated from the rest of society. only 1% for our citizens serve in military and less than 10% even know a family or know anyone who is in the military. that is a small minority and in politics, the worry is out of sight, out of mind. and so, with the pressures that we are now facing with the government spending and cutting many of our servicemen and women worry probably rightfully that the time the budget act is going to fall on them as they did in the 1970's, but with greater intensity and the immediacy. this morning's session is one of those where everybody, that means you, me, them, and we mean from each other. our panelists have been chosen to cover the range of challenges and opportunities our returning vets and wounded warriors and their families face and the

programs available to them. we have a wounded warrior family. tom martin and his wife who are sitting in the middle of the panel. and they are going to dhaka with the unique and difficult journey they have had from the perspective of the inside of one family goes through. you are all going to have an opportunity to ask questions but the way this is going to work is i'm going to internals the panel, they are going to talk about the programs they represent the their communities offer and i'm going to grill them fox news style and then we are going to let you grill them and i think by the end of this what we want to do is go over a couple of things to read one of the roles and responsibilities of the government, not just the defense department and veterans administration that the other agencies. what is the demobilization process and the disability evaluation system? where to the programs that we have fall short? where are the gaps and the care in the services, whether they are from bureaucratic red tape,

budget shortfalls or poorly designed programs? we want to talk about the yellow ribbon program, that is the new g.i. bill of educational benefits that's probably more this afternoon the pebble beach and issue that comes up. and finally, how do the bone did for years and their communities react to each other? they come back, it's not world war ii, they're coming back to the pervades but they are coming back to their communities and one of the expectations they and their communities have and what's the reality. what i would like to do now is introduce the panelists, so you know who i am, the only brunette at fox news coming and i want to introduce let's see general todd -- okay we have all switched around because we wanted the markham's to sit in the middle of this. let me first introduce major general james watkins, the guy with of the ribbons and the brass. he's the 28 general of maryland. he oversees 7,200 citizen

soldiers, airmen and civilian employees and volunteers of the maryland retreat from that. he's also very interesting because he is a dual have to buy or at least has been. he was a secretary of the veterans affairs and maryland as well as the general so he knows both signs of the equation. we also want to introduce tom bowers, raise your hand. surgeon the hours is a former marine who served two tours in iraq and one in afghanistan. he was part of the fiercest combat in the iraq war, the battle for fallujah coming in november 2004 when he was hit by a sniper and lost 80% of the hearing in his left ear. he was formerly in the iraq afghanistan veterans association which is the largest veterans' association from that war with over 200,000 members and he is now in new york for jpmorgan as part of their community of reach the one topic programs. so although he's lost 80% of the hearing in his left ear he has

enough left to hear what the bankers to say. laughter could david brown, jack? okay, david brown -- used to be a brunette. [laughter] so, she tells me he thinks that is a good enough reason he should ultimately end up at fox news. [laughter] but he is with the office of the secretary of defense where he's a clinical psychologist and an expert on recovery and the integration. a former army sergeant, dr. brown is deployed with the u.s. army in former yugoslavia to work with survivors of ethnic cleansing and genocide. and he is now with the office of the secretary defense but before that he was the defense department's lead for recovery care and support centers of excellence. lieutenant colonel ron lewis, the guy on the end, not wearing his uniform, works at the white house and he is a former air force -- sees the current air force c-17 a pilot, former commander of the fourth airlift

squadron which handles the country's most sensitive cargo which is the prime nuclear airlift force that he has recently joined the white house staff in the east wing and first lady's staff of the joining forces initiative. that's the national program to mobilize all sectors of society to support our service members and their families. that's the mother ship. we have nicole from little rock arkansas who served as an army combat medic. today she's a behavioral health officer in the team leader of the little rock arkansas center dealing with post-traumatic stress syndrome. and then finally, we have the marcum come sergeant tom and april marcum a wounded warrior family. we thought it was important for you to meet up front and personal people who dealt with these issues. the marcum family had a long and difficult journey through the bureaucracy. sergeant marcum was injured in july 2008 in iraq and suffered a

traumatic brain injury with vision, hearing and cognitive deficits, chronic migraines and short-term memory loss. his wife and caregiver is going to speak for the family and talk about their experiences getting snarled and red tape and finally come getting adequate medical treatment for tom and how his injuries have impacted not just him and their marriage and their entire family and their children. so, i'd like to get started by going first to link and we are going to ask chairman adkins if he would like to talk about the programs are that he is in charge of an maryland and then we are going to go to everybody. as i said we are going to go to everybody. they are going to talk and then you get to ask questions. i'm going to sit down and turn this over to general adkins. spinning the rank doesn't work too well in my home so i'm not sure that's how we should start here. [laughter] let me first thank the naval institute for hosting this great event. i happen to be life members of both of the organizations and

what we see what is an army guy doing as part of the naval institute? i'm in maryland, the naval academy is there and for naval academy graduates have held my job at one point in maryland's history so a little bit of information kit i come to the position of the general out of retirement, and after having served as the secretary of veterans affairs from 2003 to 2009, and i tell you it brings a great perspective of dealing with the veterans of the nation's greatest generation to korea, vietnam, desert storm and some not so young that serve today. i was recently in iraq. you know, we have 6500 troops in maryland. i tell you the generation of service members today stands as tall as any generation that has ever gone before. so our nation should be extremely proud of their service to this nation.

you know we've been at war for a decade. we are using the guard and reserve the level not seen since world war ii. tens of thousands from maryland have served in combat and continue to do that. but there are a lot of lessons learned from the past that i fink we maybe have not used, and we need to capture the lessons we are learning now as we build systems for the future, and i would recommend the greatest generation that comes home this book that i read as a secretary of a veterans affairs to identify issues faced by returning veterans. some of you may know that general omar bradley was the first director of the va. then he was quoted right after world war ii saying it is a fast dehumanized bureaucracy meshed in mountains of red tape, and i think that we have to think and evaluate our nation and how far have we come and the 60 some years after the end of world war

ii. another interesting quote from general bradley was, you know, looking at the v.a. system after world war ii was the was a world war ii load on eworld 41 chassis. in other words, the system supporting the va, the veterans was not sufficient to support those world war ii veterans coming home. and i think as late as last week and a senior army meeting i heard an army for start make the comment that we are operating now on that world war ii system coming and we have been kind of over the last ten years trying to build a system like working on a car, building a car, maintaining a car and the repairing of the car as it goes down the road 65 miles an hour. so, i think that there are lots of lessons learned, and one last quote from general bradley as we look out at our nation is that

the problems of our veterans cannot be solved by washington and loan. those problems are solved as a love shoulders with of their neighbors and where the friction occurs in the communities as they return home. there is a tremendous cost to the war might end as we apply military power we must never lose sight of that cost and it's not just fuel and the bullets and those who make the ultimate sacrifice. it's those who continue on for decades to bear the wones of the war. and i think that these words that we are in now for the next five, six, seven decades the nation will be dealing with issues related to these wars. i tell you that because when the war came out the ken burns' film, i was in a room with a bunch of world war ii veterans of the premier of the film. post-traumatic stress that came out in those veterans after

decades of not having issues, and i have seen it with individuals i've served with can out of the vietnam extremely strong individuals and as they get older the post-traumatic stress comes to be. so, our focus is the war is not over as it was in world war i when they got this charge for getting $50 a train ticket to go home. the war is not over until those individuals are fully integrated back home with their families, their friends and their communities back at war or on the college campuses. so, i guess we need to prepare for the next war. we need to look at our systems now to identify the lessons learned and work on building the system that is going to support the needs of our veterans in the future. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you congenital adkins. i would like to turn now to talk about was, the wounded marine who is now in new york listening to those bankers. todd tristani thank you. can you hear me okay? the generals using in ipad and now we are switching to the marine reading off a note pad with crayon. [laughter] so clearly there's going to be differences in the things we discussed on a good note, as was said life always been in the marine corps reserve come something i'm proud of and i will always consider myself a marine and it wasn't until just made by completely dropped off. i have about a year to decide if i want to go back salon de three and 64 during to be getting a phone call from me but during that time i did four tours in the honor of serving with multiple infantry battalions during the initial invasion during the battle of fallujah spend some time down in south america and the most recently returned from afghanistan.

it was during these times in between my tour i was serving as an advocate for the devotee afghanistan veterans of america. what better job for someone in the military. seeing the resources available, seeing the benefits provided, understanding the issues are and making sure to focus on yourself but i was not. it was something i did not handle correctly looking back on it and i am trying to pinpoint on the reason why. if i knew all of these resources were available, why did it take me until last month to finally set foot into the va and say it's time to start taking care of todd? it took a long time for me to soak these in and understand that while i am so busy dealing with the mother to read the great job of teaching me which is taking care of the other side wasn't taking care of myself and it's something i think is noble in the military but it's something that also is a sort of detriment to the individuals themselves. even though now i wear a tie and i do all this other stuff, and installation kernan free integrity.

as i went through the different levels throughout my multiple deployment lysol the transition assistance program change over the years sometimes for better sometimes for worse and was made very clear you just got home from work and you are different and it's time to start taking care of yourselves and what it always do? we took the pamphlets and put it in a bad and then we step away from it. we don't focus on it exactly correct that it takes years for these things to start manifesting, you start questioning when you're not sleeping correctly and wondering why am i having a tough time getting along with my friends and was two months ago source of these can together the right time. i look back on it as a blessing but social issues combined with work issues, combined with marine corps issues piled upon to meander wasn't until i made that call to the vet center which i'm excited we will hear someone from the vet center here today i said i need help can you help me into the va was there in

a heartbeat providing outstanding services and they took me under their wing and got me squared away and i convey this now publicly to a lot of the members site deployed with because i say that simple step from that small piece of communication on the battlefield wheelan that communication is key. you've got to communicate as well. if you are on the radio during the message traffic and you don't respond then you are not accomplishing your mission and that's hard for some folks to step up and to myself included. having made those changes now i realize life turned around. all of a sudden i got a fancy banker job now. i have to wear these things. they are called dot i's. [laughter] i thought they were fabric belts of some sort for a while. anyway, and when i look at these things and the capacity that i am in now working on philanthropic giving i suppose for jpmorgan chase is apparently a big company of some sort comes of focusing on their philanthropic giving something that has been said to me by many folks is we need to focus, and you mentioned the generals the

sea of good will that's out there is what we are going to rely on for the service members as they come back. this is not a job the dod end of the va can handle and we are going to be looking to the future at that out reach. what are the tools we can use to get to these to say it is time to make sure you are taking care of yourselves and it is the community level organizations able to reach all to these folks as they reintegrated become civilians and they will be able to communicate and say are you stepping into the va and having difficulties with housing we have programs for that. that communication will be critical to move forward and i have to applaud the va but not because they could be amazing steps in doing their of reach for the younger generation service members. they are on facebook, twitter, multiple levels of the social media doing the best they can from the mother ship in washington, d.c. to reach out to the vets in the places they are which is online. you know, i was joking about the crayon and the ipad win in all honesty i have a smart phone in my pocket right now where i know

if i need to go through some counseling or something of that nature it's a couple of buttons away and it's just making sure that i know it's available to be able to step into that. so going forward, you know, one of the things i think we are really going to have to focus on is every single service members different. everybody reacts differently when they come home. we can't do a blanket powerpoint presentation to deal with these folks and say come back. i'm a young a somewhat stupid combat marine, i'm very different than some of my other friends. and so understanding how to communicate with these folks is going to be critical and i look forward to seeing how it goes forward. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. now we are going to turn over to nicole keesee familiar with the programs of the local level. mccaul as a colonel in the reserves and head of the va vet centers in little rock arkansas. nicole? >> good morning.

i want to thank the leader of the readjustment counseling service said the va for letting me be here today and my boss, luann hinkle, who is also a retired social worker in the army reserve were actually are me, i'm sorry. it's something to come prepared to talk about one thing and then you find you are going to talk about another. but all the ladies in the audience who heard a single that are single, he's your guy, right? [laughter] i want to interject i'm married to a banker. he's not only cute and eligible but he's probably a good catch. >> my number is on the back of the pamphlets. [laughter] >> he said he used crayons. i used a pen and pad. that's our me. anyway, in order to understand the context of the situation we are dealing with regarding the

returning were transitioning service members, we've got to remember the differences between the military and the civilian culture. and i just want to point some of those out. in the military is a faster pace although anybody in the military would dispute that if you stand in line for any length of time. but in the civilian life is a much slower and natural kind of pace from day to day. there's hyper vigilance, you learn how to be hyper vigilant. in the army or the military, there is a fostering of aggression and paranoia. you have to be aggressive, you have to be paranoid to survive on the battlefield. now, hyper vigilance doesn't work so well in the civilian sector. it will get you fired, reprimanded, it will get you booted out of your house. in the military to have use of target integration. that creates a kind of hostile environment in the home and workplace as well. in the military you give and

receive orders. it's an environment of obedience it's also one of a maturity level that is somewhat different than the military and its more inclusive. in the civilian sector though, you make decisions you have to engage in critical thinking of the time. in the military committee foster teamwork and interdependence, and if you could -- those of you that haven't been in the military will have a hard time understanding this but as a symbiosis, there's a psychological symbiosis that happens to people who enter the military. we go from being in on an i to a we. going from that we to an i has psychological ramifications. ..

it requires promotional investment and relationships. so what are the challenges we face? we are more of a closed system. there are fewer clear pathways to assistance and information. when a person goes through the

military to civilian world there may be an increase or decrease in the respect one is given. think of being a 21-year-old squad leader who gets out of the military. it is a real shift, a real shift in the mindset. that is really hard to get your head around. there's a lack of knowledge in benefits to the reserve component and a lot of people here, well, i don't know if the reserves have come i only know -- and there's a big difference between reserves component benefits and active-duty benefits. there is constantly changing military and veteran policies and benefits. every veteran i see the walks are the best center doors i have to know them individually. i have to know when they serve, where they serve. there is so much i have to know about them on an individual

basis to even begin to understand what their benefits are. not everyone has the same transition challenges at the same twine as was pointed out. their changes and significant relationships. how many people do you know on the screening site undergo the tremendous relationship stresses that our military members go through? there are feelings of being left behind when you transition out of the military, and also we forget that in the civilian sector people have a limited capacity to listen. it is hard for others to listen to another person story because they are all caught up in -- reserve components have family readiness groups but they are geographically dispersed and many of them don't have the same

understanding of the command structure. you have to understand before this war started, you can have reserve folks that were in the military for 20 years and they would tell their spouses they would get paychecks going to reserve duty. it is one of those guy things, you know. web sites are hard to navigate and they get the impression that they don't care. there is difficulty getting benefits because you don't know where to go. you don't know what to do and again nobody listens. their minds are elsewhere. it is hard to really reach out. plakon have a discussion about that but there is probably a lot of factors that go into that. there the various policies and procedures among active duty reserve components and the services with veterans.

one big example is for a reserve component in the army reserve. you have to have a line of duty in order to get your military health care needs taking care of if they are related to the military. if you don't have that line of duty you have to pay for it out-of-pocket whereas that is the component -- and believe me not everybody knows how to fill out one. soldiers at transition and servicemembers that face feelings of isolation, disconnection, confusion and frustration and anger. isolation is a killer. fort hood is a really good example of how the installation really rallied around a very dramatic event that occurred, but asked the reserve components

that were stationed there. ask the family members of the reserve components that were stationed there and how much rallying was around them. health care skipping. when you go from active -- when you go from reserve or civilian to reserve to active duty back to -- i mean he gets really confusing on who do i go to for what and who is going to cover what? now the va has a wonderful five-year health care program but not everybody wants to go to the va. and there is also the challenge of being dual status. i am a reserve member? and my veteran and actually you are both. outreach. outreach is a big issue. more later about that i guess. in order to successfully transition, servicemembers have to have a strong sense of community and they have to have

meaningful employment and they have to have a strong healthy sense of self and they have to have support. i will say it again. isolation is a killer. solutions. everybody needs a readjustment plan. why aren't we providing transitioning servicemembers readjustment planning? we have tabs. we have some other things but who sits down and you know asks people face-to-face, where are you going, what are you doing, what are your plans? do you know about your benefits? all too often servicemembers are told go to the va. layer is the va in my community? and when you get to the va where do i go? as good as it is, we still need to do better regarding navigation of the systems. it is best to help those of us

who are veterans, we are i think are the ones that are the best to help other veterans. one thing about the vet center staff, over 72% of of the his vet center staff are veterans. 47% are combat veterans and 31 or send rg watt combat veterans. 42% are women. big brother type programs might help out too. i know canada has a wonderful veteran program, kind of a peer-to-peer where they actually train fare older veterans and give them two weeks training so they can mentor young veterans that are coming off military service. we need to expand the kind -- team concept and expand support systems and we need to foster relationships with veteran owned businesses.

mental health services for servicemembers and veterans and not family members is not a vet this. we have to strive more to provide services to family members. we need to make our systems and the process is easier. most of all we need to make sure every servicemember, whether in the service or as a veteran, are welcomed, respected and are given respect to privacy and our continued gratitude for their sacrifices. vet center programs are very unknown. we get a lot of calls asking about how to care for dogs and cats, at least several times during the day but i am one of the staff of six that they sent her. we provide counseling services to most of the state of arkansas and anybody who is from arkansas to realize is that it is a very rural stay. we have the very areas in

arkansas that are very underserved and we have veterans in these underserved areas. vet centers were established in 1979 thanks to cleland and we were specifically established to provide readjustment counseling to veterans day goes to our vietnam veterans. they really spearheaded this program because they stop going to the va because of the treatment they were getting. we are community based and we are say. we have grown to 232. we have 50 mobile vet centers out there that will go where they are needed. and i have got to wrap it up. and we have, anyways, be happy to talk to anybody more about vet center services. thank you. [applause] >> thank you nick colin now we are going to turn to dr. david browne who is with the office of the secretary of defense, where he is an expert on suicide prevention recovery and reintegration but before that he was the lead in the department

of defense for recovery care and the support centers of excellence. dr. browne. >> thank you. so i'm going to lean into the general here. i feel comfortable doing that, sir. we have offered up our seats and we didn't think about the mic's. i would like to just take a minute or two to speak about health seeking behavior and possibly encourage some of the conversation in that direction. prior to coming here to d.c. i was overseas for 15 years. i was the lead psychologist in bavaria over seven basis they're treating people, the whole slew of what you have from being in the military. part of that grass is green on the other side issue that has come in, all of my career was very active duty centric and what we would hear was for the guard and reserve things worked much better because once they deploy they go home and they are back with their families and all of their support whereas when you are overseas active duty you don't have a lot of the support networks we have set in place

here. cents shipping over and now in a nonclinical role i have learned that is not the case for many individuals so i will highlight a couple of areas with regards to care for caregiver well-being and employment. before doing that what i want to do is. >> briefly on the program we created in europe called social 360. what this was about was healthy -- help seeking behavior in trying to bring treatment to individuals who were maybe resistant to seeking that out. when i was active duty and deployed i was 12 inches from the next individual, and you knew who got letters from home and who didn't and who was sleeping and who is eating. when you pull back from deployment many times they stick behavior health in the back corner of the base and no one can really find us. so with that said what we designed was -- let's create this program that is invite only the best in the brightest and

you are hand selected from your company commander or battalion commander. so we have these individuals who were screened and did not meet any criteria to come to treatment and lo and behold we start to realize, this was somewhat of a trojan horse. we taught them about the importance of sleep and the four hours isn't sufficient. contrary to what their first sergeant told them. we have folks who would eat, i kid you not eat skittles and mounted do for a week or two while in the striker because it was just kind of the funny thing to do. and then they realize, i am kind of impulsive and irritable. so the course they went through received to college credits for this course by the way and we had a lot of great success with this. this encouraged us then with reaching out in bavaria now for the army they embed providers in primary care and embed primary care providers in the unit and they embed providers in the school systems. we are seeing great benefit in that.

with regards to the help seeking behavior ever called there was a time i went to the wtu and we were encouraging folks with a health seeking behavior and using a component we used an in soldier 360 which was humor. we went off to the center. he is the guru behind mind-body medicine and we learned the benefit even behind having a one-hour instruction in humor. i tried using humor with the wt folks in there was one gentleman i recall who lost a portion of his foot and after we have really got going, this guy was cracking us all up and he said it has been almost nine months and i forgot how to laugh. i forgot the things i used to do and i used to do very well. he had us going like, do you remember the dean martin roast? we are talking vietnam so i'm trying to relate here. [laughter] so you remember the dean martin roast? he says, you know.i may have lost a portion of my foot but i

still have my hair. and he says you can go seek help for that. and he just had us going. taking some of this -- these insights and opportunities i had learned from others coming in this nonclinical position it is interesting. i was presenting on polytrauma.national institutes of health and we are focusing on quite a bit of care for the caregiver and the fact that as we were just hearing here, many times we focus on the other and we don't focus enough on her cells. we are not taking good enough care of ourselves. this was the focus from polytrauma. i think it is important for all of us to take time and look at ourselves. we are taught about selfless service, loyalty and duty and i think it is a big challenge that we are now going counter to our culture. well-being, we have been focusing quite a bit on well-being. those of you who aren't familiar with the gallup studies there a lot of different studies on well-being but gallup when you

look at national guard and reserves, the active-duty folks when they return they still have a job and guard and reserves might not. and to show you how important well-being is and the employment, employment that is, the gallup studies focused on employment and have noted that your well-being recovery is faster from death of a loved one over the course of the year than it does from prolonged unemployment. stumping to really think about. today is a special day but they do this throughout the year. i can't tell you how many function i've been involved with and they bring employers and bring the businesses and those other components and which is rather important. lastly i wanted to shift to one more lesson learned. if you are not familiar with the work of thomas joiner the psychologist, he speaks about suicide and he speaks about to components in particular. thwarted sense of belonging and sensitive burdensome. at a soldier released after

suicide attempt with lethal means and intent to diet and i sat down with him and went over the paper work and had an idea what he was going to say. we screen you to make sure you are of day before we integrate you back into your unit. and i said can you give me a heads up on what rings you here? and he said i killed a soldier. and i was thinking oh my goodness this is going to be a sanity report. iowa's and prepare for him when he said that i thought perhaps there was a mishap of the paperwork. i say can you tell me more? he said everyone had a chance to take a break during their deployment and when the first sergeant came to me and said i am putting in the substitute that substitute died as a result of an ied. so he is carrying this guild with them. this was from his first deployment. he is now returned back from his third deployment at this time and still eating at him. and he had a new spouse and before he left the primary

concern was family-planning. she said when you come back we will work on a family. well that wasn't working. not to change the topic here too much but i've shared this story before. she could see it look like it was working but when you engage it is not working. he is still downrange and i brought this information to the soldier 360 program and said any of you guys experiencing this? these are guys in their 20s, per 2010 young 30s and 70% of the soldiers had reported yeah, thought that was kind of normal and i didn't ask for a show of hands. i asked him to write on a piece of paper yes or no fewer if you are experienced in this. the gentleman shared with me i failed my team down rage and now i'm failing my wife on the burden and i don't belong and that is when he had attempted suicide. not to leave you on a somber tone here, there is a positive

side to this story. after going through treatment, doing rather well, they are now at -- they are stationed locally. they have three children so he is going well and i swear the wife looked at me like i'm going to kill you. [laughter] but yeah with regards to health seeking behavior think it is rather important and good to be focused on that and what we do when we ran to grade back to society so thank you for your time. [applause] >> thank you doctor. i would like to now turn to the white house and lieutenant colonel rodney lewis. this administration seems to have come in and they have a particular interest and not forgetting our military families. would you like to talk to us about the joining families program you have at the white house? >> absolutely. first evolved thank you very much for having me here today.

it is a privilege and honor to be on this panel and you just speak to you and have a conversation. i would be remiss if i didn't say the executive director of joining forces, captain brad cooper would love to be here today. unfortunately his schedule did not allow. as you get to know me a little bit better i think that is -- i am the active-duty air force officer, lieutenant colonel graduated commander and in the spirit of best practices i do have my crayon, my pad and paper and my ipad. ipad. [laughter] so, you know what's air force guys, we are always prepared. in all seriousness, i have been in this job and have seen some amazing things in terms of watching not only our government but the private industry, all galvanized to come behind what we all know as a force that has been fighting for over a decade and the first lady recognizes

that as well. as kt mentioned earlier, 1% of the individuals are out there serving our country and i think only 10% know of a servicemember the first lady is trying to reach the other 90%. that is what joining forces is. it is an awareness campaign. traditionally the swing is not the policy side of the white house. fat falls within the west wing and it falls within all of those agencies that the president bonds, the va, the dod, and it is a unique religion for me to be in the east wing to watch the first lady really try to bring a nation of two speed in terms of awareness so that is what joining forces is. after many conversations, the first lady traveled around and has seen many military members

and specifically talking to spouses. heard a recurring theme. these are places in areas where we need help. these are places where you can help us as the first lady and the pinnacle point of that really rested on three pillars. the employment piece. q. now as transitioning members needed jobs, that was something that the first lady and dr. biden heard a tremendous amount so that is one of the pillars. the second pillar, education, and to kind of go back recently to the employment piece, which he heard was the fact that military members were changing locations so much that the spouses were being left out. now a personal story. wife had five different assignments and seven years. so, my spouse who is a college graduate and has a master's degree. the last location we left she

had a wonderful job when she transitioned to the next location she couldn't take that job. so those are issues that the first lady heard and those are issues that dr. biden heard and that is what the employment piece really came in not only for spouses but obviously for veterans, transitioning out of the military as well. it has been nice to watch this come together with agencies, really focused on the specific task. education. there are issues that can be there when the military families, pcs. using my example, don't have high school children but imagine if you will five different locations in seven years, the transportability of records, the transportability of just having a consistent education basis. my parents, when i grew up my dad had a job and he was really proud to have his 35 year pen

working for the state of oklahoma. i lived in one house and i have the same friends and i had the same teachers. into the schools i was going to the poor i went to them so it is a different environment. education in terms of military families, that is an important piece that we are working towards trying to improve with great agencies like the national math and science initiative with the initiative for military families, who do advanced placement courses for specifically military schools or schools that support military members. and then finally the third piece was wellness. that was an area where the first lady and dr. biden really saw a need and they were talking to the spouses, the military members. the way i like to think of it is a tripod. implement, education and wellness. like any tripod, if one of those legs is broke in, does not going to stand. so joining forces is a program

and you can go to edit joining forces.gov to learn a little bit more about that. this is a program that has been started by the first lady and dr. biden to really go out and get those areas where key pieces of government cannot always work well within. for example, within the community, faith-based and then more importantly in the private industry. to be able to bring resources to bear on an issue that all americans should be aware of, so the first lady has been doing that through her program, joining forces and kt i think that is it. [applause] >> thank you very much. now we have heard of the national level and the state level and at the local level the programs that are being offered and a lot of the challenges that

our military and their families face but there is one family that i really think we should spend some time listening to and that is the mark on's, sergeant tom marcum and his wife april marcum who are sitting in the middle. april is going to speak on behalf of the family and i spoke to her and have spoken to her many times and i was particularly moved i first of all what an amazingly courageous lady she is and by her husband who i think is not atypical of the military men and women who have injuries and their reluctance to admit that they have a problem. and then finally, the difficulties the marcum's head navigating the system. april you have a statement i would love for you to read it please. >> icv ipads in the pen and paper and everything. i have my typed up double spaced and everything because i am the teacher. [laughter] time and i came here today to

share a story with you and not necessarily to bring attention to us but to help the men and women who are in the road right now where we were two or three years ago, so this is our story. when my husband deployed to iraq in january of 2008 i had the usual worries of any spouse, how long is he going to be gone this time? how will i keep up with working full-time, parenting our children and the demands of running a household? this was not her first deployment and so i did what thousands of military spouses do every day. i dove in and did what i had to do. when i received a phonecall from my husband saying that he had been working on a mobile armory when a mortar exploded 35 yards away from him, my first thoughts were oh my god, are you okay? he downplayed the extent of his injuries to me and told me he was fine. i'm fine. he said he had a bad headache and his ears were ringing but the medics told him to take it

easy for a few days and rested he would be fine. when he came home a few weeks later after spending nine months in iraq, it was easy to see a not everything was fine. he still had the same headache. he was confused at simple things. he had short-term memory loss. the last job for me was the day he called for -- me on his way home from work a basically been stationed for three years at that point, six miles from our home and said i can't remember how to get home. i made sure that we called the doctor. the local medical community including the air force medical clinic doctor seems to be reluctant to help. tom's primary care doctor imply that tom was trying to get out of work. this felt like a slap in the face to both of us because he has served 15 years active duty was never complaining of multiple deployments or shin splints or anything. than the doctor made a statement, i will write you a

prescription for motion but you really need to up and go back to work. after that we both felt like there should be somewhere for us to go to get the medical help tom needed so we made an appointment with a medical group commander and his primary care doctor after that appointment decided tone should probably go through a medical evaluation board. this process was long and overwhelming, but my husband finally ended up in a polytrauma unit in tampa florida at a va medical center where he received outstanding medical treatment. the medical team found that tom had a traumatic brain injury caused by a fracture behind his right eye. his right shoulder needed to be surgically repaired. he was diagnosed with hearing loss and vision deficits and they also suggested he be further evaluated for ptsd. at the time i has been went through this hospital the polytrauma unit it had been over a year since he had been home from iraq. in may of 2010 the air force

place, and temporary disability retirement list status, which is also called tdrl. they told us he would be reevaluated every six months. to find out that there were going to do with him. over a year later and june of 2011 tom and i had to travel to san antonio texas from our home in south georgia. we paid for the entire trip minus airfare out of her own pocket and had to wait for the air force marine process. the total for the trip was over $750, more than our mortgage payment. we have yet to hear the determination of what they are ultimately going to do with tom. as of now, we travel over two hours one way to get to a va medical center that has the right set of medical personnel to treat tom's injuries. we do have an amazing, caring team of professionals that we work with at the va. i would love to name them all by

name, but i will just tell you that his primary care doctor is amazing. his neurologist has been instrumental in his care. he has a psychologist that understands him and does not take his. [laughter] we have an oif nurse case manager who has been helpful in getting as the appointments we need and not make a nest travel more than the 2.5 hours we already travel. in this we are truly blessed. the challenges over the last three years have been many and not only have we had to get used to a new normal in our home, because of tom's cognitive and emotional deficits, but our family has shouldered the burden in other ways. while waiting for a va rating, because tom was placed into tdrl status with no joint rating when he left the air force, we were in financial crisis. not only did i have to quit my job to care for tom, but he had a significant pay cut as well and we were forced to dip into

our life savings. by may of 2011 it was totally gone. our youngest son was diagnosed with secondary ptsd. he began to act out of school and at home and had terrible nightmares. i myself felt depressed. seemed like the weight of the world was on my shoulders and i had no one there to help. i had to take care of my husband and my children and tried to figure out how i was going to pay the mortgage all at the same time. but not everything that is happen to us during this time has been negative. we have grown closer as a family. my children have matured under the stress and under going into fine young men. both tom and i have met amazing people and made lifelong friends that we have never would have met otherwise in some of them are in this room today. it may seem strange but i am thankful for the trials in life. am i saying i'm glad this happened to my husband or that i would not rather have the old

tom back? no. but we have accepted this. i have accepted this, and as a family we have accepted it. we are proud that my husband served his country well. i want to say god bless america and god bless the men and women who serve. [applause] [applause] >> i think everybody in this room and everybody in this country feels that none of our veteran should ever have to go through anything like that again, and so i'm opening this up to anyone on the panel.

you all are programmed present various aspects of the reintegration and care community. why did this happen? what can we do to make sure that it never happens again? i will open that up to anyone. and if nobody volunteers i will start calling on people. general, how about you? you are somebody who has seen both sides of this not only active-duty and reserve the through the veterans administration and through -- as an adjutant general in maryland. >> i wish it was the only storyline but it is not. and i think he gets back to that system under the burden of dealing with a nation at war for 10 years, not prepared to handle the tbi or the post-traumatic stress, and i think it is critical as we get to a point of coming out of the conflict in an environment of reduced resources that we build a system to be prepared to handle future cases

like this and to ensure that it doesn't happen again. there is a lot of were to be done. we have got to get be on the turf battles. we have got to identify what is important and that reduced resources environment and making sure that whatever we do works to prevent this case, this type of situation from happening again. >> anybody else? doctor i want to ask you. one of the things i think that is so upsetting is the first place they went to their primary care physician fell on deaf ears. is this why again, is this something unusual and how do we prevent that from happening again? >> to reiterate what the general said unfortunately not to say it is common but to hear of this occurring. we have, when i showed up in germany they had transitioned

the stryker unit out there, and i was one of the first resources to show up. on my first thursday i had 17 people who were walk-ins who were suicidal or homicidal and it was myself and any five. i can tell you how money people were there to be seen but within the year i think we hired 42 new providers. of those 425 of us were veterans. dr. guys from health affairs, the principle deputy for health affairs had shared that the va did a wonderful dvd on the military culture because many of these providers who come in don't understand military culture. it is analogous to someone who is never drank up to haul in their life treating a nocco holly. is a different culture and to learn some of those nuances is rather important. the concern i have is i had the misfortune of the benefit of going through eight joint

commission accreditation inspections for hospitals. and i have seen all the work that goes through to prepare a hospital hospital for joint commission inspection and then many of those people transition out. the next joint commission inspection that happens you have new people and they say what are all of these documents and they discard them. and you get hit with not passing the inspection. my concern is that we don't forget these lessons learned. as these conflicts dissipate, as we wrap things up that we keep our and the structure in place and that we never forget. >> one of the things -- i ran for the united states senate in new york and i would campaign wherefore drum is and i found that women would come up to me, mothers, sometimes younger women and they would say you know, who do i talk to? my daughter-in-law and my son-in-law had just come back

from deployment and he never used to drink and now he drinks all the time and won't get out of bed. other women would come up to me and say my daughter has come home because her husband has come back and he has anger management issues and he is hitting her. they have said to me, where should we go? i had no idea what to tell them and i think todd when you said you came back, you had all the pamphlets that you just tossed aside and he didn't want to read any more stuff. what is the first step somebody does when they come back and how does their family help them to take that first step? i will throw it out to anybody. >> i would like to answer that question. one of the things they can do is find the nearest bed center and the reason i say that is because it is free. is free to combat veterans then free to families of servicemembers that have been killed an active-duty and free to veterans who were sexually traumatized while on active duty. we are community-basedcommunity based, very informal.

you can walk in. is the counselor can't see you immediately, we will make sure you have an appointment scheduled within three days. we are kind of fare on the frontline. we are separate from the va hospital. our records are kept separately so we have more, we have more of an ability to be private but it is peer-to-peer. we have a lot of veterans on staff that can relate to the folks folks coming through the doors. we welcome veterans as they come through the door. we give them a cup of coffee or something to drink and we just made them feel at home. it is a good first stop because then we can refer them to other resources that are not only available in the va but throughout the community. >> i would like to ask you doctor one of the things it seems to come up time and time again is the idea that if you were in the military you are the kind of person who does up and who does not complain and say i

need help and particularly if they are psychological issues is there any way to convince people or convince their families, you know, what should families look for when someone comes home and how do you change that mentality of somebody who has the general said somebody who fights and has the certain characteristics and then comes back to the united states and needs to have different characteristics? >> as a clinician i got a lot of my legs out of asking people to bring their spouses and. many times we are not the best keeper of our own records. we brought this up last year at the defense forum. i can't tell you how many times i've had a spouse come in and i'm asking a servicemember have you experienced this and have you experienced that? nowhere thing is fine and then the wife recalls you can't recall your wise -- mother's phone number you are having nightmares. i spoke at the national association of counties in march or april and a large concentration of world war ii

and korean war vets and vietnam and i'd mentioned this about people coming back and wanting to return to where they were and that they have change. our society is much different. even though the world war ii vets were greeted with parades they weren't necessarily greeted with the opportunities for treatment and one lady came up to me and said every fourth of july my husband doesn't engage in the fourth of july. he used to drink too much on the fourth of july and he would have nightmares and mumble and german. we are from des moines, you know? you could start to see there are cultures that really met criteria for these diagnoses. they didn't have the opportunities. so i think community outreach, peer-to-peer programs -- we have tremendous programs out there. last count i heard there were over at the peak over 500 different resilience or grams so i think we have learned some of our lessons and we are doing well. doing better but there is still

a ways to go. >> todd white you add to that? as a former murray and i'm sure you have had different experiences. >> creativity is going to be the key for a lot of the spouses when they're out there. for them to be able to understand -- who came up with an id. these families were returning because they did know what the signs were and didn't know who to contact. simple concept of a piece of paper you put on the fridge that says is he not sleeping well? is he drinking too much? is he having an overall hard time? don't think twice, call us. plain and simple. for the whole family to see for them to understand these are the issues in just one single line, one number to get the call and that was the vet center he was employed at. it is genius and thinking of the ways around it and sort of the communication on how to layout for these folks that he is all right, this is normal behavior. if i go to combat with someone and they go home with the exact same person they were before combat, then there is something

wrong. these are extreme circumstances that individuals are dealing with that it is just difficult to readjust in making that very clear for the family members is really going to be key. >> i want to turn now to -- . >> can i add to that context a little bit as well? one of the things i think is really important and you have hit on it as well as the aspect of not only should it be the members family members but a wider context in terms of the community so raising the awareness would say first responders. they may come in contact with an individual and they need to know what to do. do we send them to the va? what services are available? that is something that is being looked at and it is extremely important as well. on the policy side, in the east wing but on the policy side in january that president signed it est, strengthening our military families, meeting america's commitment and for me i think it

is being an active-duty air force member is the watershed event because every single service cabinet member signed that document and every cabinet member said i was going to look into his or her department and agencies and determine how are we doing this to go straight to it general adkins said. are we utilizing our resources effectively? if you haven't read that, i think it is a document that is well worth your read on the policy side so it is part of government, it is a part of private industry as well and community and it is definitely an education in education piece that goes without. >> general, since you have two stars on your shoulder and you obviously know what it takes to have a successful career in the military, is someone who come see there is that duty or former, if they admit to having any kind of psychological

problems that you can see like a broken arm, is that something that will be detrimental to their career at either as they integrate into the civilian world or if they stay in the military? >> no. and they think that you have to understand that we have been part of the journey for the last decade. and i have to tell you that from the experience within my own family i had an uncle who committed suicide after world war ii. it did not come to me to understand the issue until i visited the behavior of health, mental health ward of gold to read where the doctors explain to me that the real challenge is to get them to sleep so that the mind gets an opportunity to rest. that uncle, and we all probably have had those uncles and our families come after world war ii who went to the vfw or the american legion and the they self-medicated with fellow veterans, and then if that didn't work they got to the point of suicide. that is the challenge we see now and i think we are changing --

we have change the culture. we have had senior officers in our army come out and admit that they have issues. that is where we need to go in the future and i think that in maryland for example, our lieutenant governor was anthony browne, an iraq war veteran. he came back and put a focus on making sure we have the behavioral safety net in maryland for our returning veterans and for our guard and reserve. and the focus on the families to get them to come forward and identify the issues is critical. they see them first and to make sure they understand that there is a place that they can call and it we are there to help. we all have to understand that there is terminus cost to war as i said earlier. these are natural responses to the unnatural environment. >> i think at this point it is

time to open up to the audience any questions that you might have. we have microphones set up here and here and if you would like to ask a question, we would ask first to identify yourself, where you are from and then if you have a specific member of the panel he would like to address please do that as well. i want to warn you i am from the world of television. we believe in sound bytes, not speeches. if anybody's question is too long it won't be for long. yes, sir, over here. >> jim -- her work in tricare in virginia and i had a question for colonel keesee about the vet centers. how often do prospective employers come to your vet center and say they are interested in hiring a veteran? >> well, it by my silence i guess you can deduce that not very often but that doesn't mean

we are not working within the state and within the state employment division. they have veteran representatives who work specifically to work with veterans. as far as employers coming to the vet center, they don't. >> i see it as a challenge to hire disabled veterans. i am one of 16 veterans on my fathers side and my wife's side of the family. and, i work for the department of defense and i reached out to hire some veterans. i wish more people would. i know we have veterans who used the g.i. bill and they go to colleges and universities. i wonder if that would be a way. i think we need a gateway to help these veterans. the unemployment rate is 15% and the rest of the country is nine. >> it is even higher when they go back to rural areas. >> and is a challenge for all of us to help these veterans. they are using the g.i. bill and

if we can get the veterans to go there to the college or university career counseling office and say i'm willing to hire a vet. the national resource directory, all these things out there. i hear a lot of what? i don't hear a lot of how. i guess i'm a little frustrated eco-'s i don't like veterans being unemployed. >> i think the afternoon panel will specifically address the issue you are talking about and we have got representatives from the industry. >> that is great, thank you. >> so ask it again this afternoon. is the let me just say in maryland for example something as simple as identifying in our job bank when a company puts a need in there to put in their a little minuteman thing i'm interested in hiring a veteran and then for resumes of veterans and guard and reserve putting another minuteman on their resumes on employer can see that as a military person and i would like to have their skills working in my organization.

>> in the center come the lady in the center with the mic. >> can anybody hear me? >> let's go to the far end and we will sort that might god in a minute. yes maam, different. >> first of all it makes a thank you for serving our country and continuing your service to our nation's veterans. my name is jennifer hunt. i'm a staff sergeant in the army reserve and i have to deployment under my nose so far and i also work for an organization called the national resource directory. the gentleman before me mentioned it. we have to try and connect veterans, their families and servicemembers to her 14,000 resources nationally and community-based to help connect veterans with the help that they need and make their reintegration and healing. so that is out there as well if anyone wants to look into that. but my specific question is that you sarah protects

servicemembers when i come home to get their jobs back, but it seems like you would need an update to protect student veterans who might get called up in the middle of the semester or maybe even family members who have to move several times with air servicemember and make jobs more affordable or the family members. i know my cia is out there but that is not always available for the spouses. can any of you speak to that, please? >> i guess, let me just address a couple of those things there. in maryland we had to establish an employment office with the national guard to focus on getting individuals coming back from there to worship judy employment and as many of you know as the adjutants generalized to sign off on the readiness of the unit before deploys and i get a briefing on that unit. we also have now started getting briefings on returning units on

a by name listing of individuals who need employment when they get back so we are looking at 90 days out in identifying the needs and working, bringing them home is just -- more important than sending them or just as important. so i think you have got a good point out there that there are lots of different resources that are critical. in maryland for example many of you served in the military. or her spouse got orders to move and your spouse had to quit their job. marilyn change the law a few years ago to allow that spouse to get unemployment insurance. up until that point they could not get unemployment insurance because they said it was not related to losing their jobs so maryland recognized that change. we are also looking at changing licensing in the state of maryland to make sure those licenses are reflected or accepted as they go from state to state. those are just a few examples of how we are we are working on that process.

>> and if i could just add in real quick, i've known jennifer hunt for years and she she is a purple heart recipient and the recently new mother of probably the cutest baby in the entire country. she is probably one of the strongest female at the gates were servicemembers who have served in iraq and afghanistan so if we could -- [applause] she will yell at me later for embarrassing her but we love you. >> and eyeshadow. >> i would like to add little bit of context to that as well. reciprocity, those are things that are being talked about right now. so that is key and i know we are going to talk employment in the afternoon but with the joining forces campaign, the first lady has been able to leverage her position with many private companies to provide job opportunities with -- we have teamed up with the u.s. chamber of commerce and they have decided to put on over 100 job

fairs. that is moving you know quite well. so there are some opportunities out there. there are places to go and i would encourage you to go to join forces.gov. >> my name is christine i'm an army wife military advocate. i'm am going to tag team this question with my friend because of a feeling we are going to be asking about the same thing. april, you talked about your son having secondary ptsd and your own challenges with mental health. one of the biggest concerns that i have as a military wife and an advocate is we are just not addressing effectively the mental health challenges facing military families themselves. right now we really have no standing operating procedures on what happens if a family member or attempts or commit suicide. we have a working model that we use for the military member but that does not -- that does not

apply to the family member member and i know there are a lot of challenges around this would have been all that kind of thing but it is a huge issue that i don't think we really understand at this point. with all due respect to the general, i do think that there is a stigma for a reason. it is not just a perception bay state mind regards to if it is going to affect your career. we have seen it affect their husband's career and us going to get services has had some negative -- so i think there is a big perception issue we can help with education but i also think until that never happens people are going to err on the side of caution so karen, did you want to bring up jessica mamie? >> actually mine was also. >> get a little closer to the mic. >> i was talking to a young lady the other day. her husband is also tbi, 100% disabled.

she went to a caregiver group at the va hospital in jacksonville and said i need help. i need to talk to somebody and she was told, we are full up. we can't take you. we can't help you. now, i have never been so mad in my life, except with jessica and with a couple of other instances of active-duty spouses who have committed suicide and they been completely ignored. but what can we do and how do we make sure that there is enough help for the caregivers, because if you are were told we don't have room when you are the sole caregiver for your husband and three kids, there is something severely wrong and i am wondering april did you find that too or argue still it up and pulling up your big girl and all the rest of it? >> april, one that you address

that? >> it was really difficult to find a health care from my family at first, the mental health care. one, because our base that we are assigned to us very small and the mental health unit there was allocated mostly for active-duty people who had problems and needed to be seen right away. that didn't leave a whole lot of appointments for the rest of us, so i had been following within an off-base provider on my own for a while. the difficulty they came with that is because we do live in arra area there is not anybody that is specialized and trained in dealing with family members who have gone through -- not only did my husband have an injury, but even if they come home with no injury, the things that they see and do and hear and smell stay with them

forever. so, they are not trained to deal with what i dealt with on a daily basis without verse or you know, refusing to take his medication because he up and demands he is a man and he doesn't have to take his medication if he doesn't want to and that sort of thing. the biggest problem when i lived in arra area was not having adequate care to specialized providers. i was telling dr. browne when it came to my son's problems, they were significant and i won't share them in this room because they are very private, but he was behaving in a way that no little boy should behave. and, there are own the two mental health providers in the town where we live that are capable of dealing with children, and when i called, they told me it was a four month waiting list to be seen. i've tagged and i cried on the phone and i called back the next day in the next day in the next

day and begged and told them, this is what is going on in my house every single day. and, they weren't able to put us on a cancellation list and luckily we didn't have to wait. i think we waited about three weeks but it was a long three weeks. so we definitely need more mental health. people who are trained in dealing with ptsd and the people that deal with the people that have ptsd, because i may have ptsd from what he has sometimes, you know. ..

that was the first time i heard about it. what do we need to do to open those gates and integrate safely and we need to figure out a way to connect those dots. >> doctor is it that we don't have enough resources or it is an attitude and culture of? >> it's complicated. with that said, there are a great many resources and a great many resources hasn't been invented and trying to coordinate this is daunting. now with that said dow's well we are working quite a bit and of course i appreciate you bringing

this up and i've had many conversations with the general chiarelli who will have the privilege of hearing him speak. he really gets it. we are reaching out to all their respective services and then also the ngos and civilian organizations to what we have to do to bring that in. that said, i really don't have a clear answer for you on that. we are doing it -- i've taken your drama and i am beating it in the pentagon the same as you are and the wonderful thing is there are people out there who really understand and really care. their heart is in it and their mind is in and other intellect matches their passion and it's just a lot of work and by what say state-owned, please. >> you've been waiting very patiently, ma'am.

>> i'm going to secede to my colonel here. >> i have first of all i want to concur that i've experienced the same thing also my plight is nowhere near yours. the problem you have is beyond our capability to take care of with the number of visits your going to have and the time you want to go out in the civilian world. you're going to have to go out in the civilian world if you don't want this going on for eight or ten years. but the big reason i came up here was to suggest one of the problems i think the va hospitals have at least three that i attended and have gone to is i see people like my two brothers, one served in the navy and one in the air force come

and a very good friend of mine who had two years in the marine corps, none of whom never had an injury or scratch or anything else. all of whom served over 40 years ago with, and all of whom get right in front of anybody else. they get an appointment to the va listing for service just as though they were 100% or 90 per cent disabled, and i know the va has regulations and a prioritization scheme of 136 or seven as i recall but it's not being enforced anywhere in the country. you know, people walk in and it's not being enforced in salt lake city or in d.c. and it's not being forced in indianapolis. those are the three hospitals the five attended.

the three va is the five attended. so, there's got to be -- i know we say certainly on active duty your sickness can't be any greater than mine, your health is no more important than mine, and as an officer we always withstand at the end of the line and just wait for it to come back before i went back in. but you don't have that opportunity enough of va hospitals. your clinicians say i need to see you in another two weeks you go out to get an appointment they are filled at the next four months because there's all these people that are in there that are probably classified six or seven and they are taking the same spaces all the spaces in chronological order.

>> we only have a few minutes left so addressed does anyone have a question related to that? okay, go ahead. >> i'm from san diego and from to those in six to 2,009 we have a program for the wounded warrior is and -- >> explain to people with this is to it is committed to forms of hands-on healing that research shows improves healing 40 to 60%. it's very effective with post-traumatic stress. we were very successful. we did that for almost 33 years. over 500. before they even got out of the military once they got out of their bed in the hospital and we could see and i'm not a psychologist or i'm not a doctor but we could see all the problems, and the problems many of them wouldn't go to see a therapist because they didn't

want it in their record. >> we just addressed that and think -- >> as much as we try to encourage the therapist to work with us there was absolutely no interest on the part of the medical group. after walter reed hospital, they closed down the program and fixed up the place and we haven't been able to get back. >> maybe that's something you can address. >> we are talking about the problem. the problems before they get out of the military because we understand the problems with the va but as the community support, how can we do it? when we are constantly told no. >> we do have a solution in place. >> you're a solution. >> we do have a solution in place and it is at the wall of the land and was created by all the military services about two

years ago, and if it is implemented with leadership oversight and accountability and data to back it up, the recovery coordination plans and federal recovery coordination plans and the screening to identify every serious and severely injured service member and a plan that addresses the needs of the family members also and integrates the community assets where the people live would prevent that kind of thing that if april or andrea or pan have to go to. we know how to do this and there is a stigma that is still out there and it is unacceptable that it takes leadership, and it takes accountability. the legislation is in place, the instructions are in place, the tools are in place and this should not be happening anymore.

>> anybody want to address? >> me i piggyback on at the moment? i know you are wondering why he isn't talking so i'm going to go ahead and talk. [laughter] i'm not completely brain dead. [applause] i think one of the big issues that i hear and i just want to piggyback you are exactly right, ma'am. everything is put in place. i've heard from people in the navy, from people in the army, people in the marines come from the air force, every branch of the union has something put in place. the problem is they are not talking with each other. [applause] that's the problem is the air force would talk to the army and the army would talk to the

marines, the marines would talk to the navy and marines attacked their force and fervor dewitt talk to each other and say you know what this is what everybody has and week to become a one huge collaboration this is the perfect plan then we wouldn't have this. that's what i think. [applause] >> use of the smartest thing anybody has said all day. i think we have time for one more question and i will go over here. >> my understanding i served two tours in vietnam and i have ptsd and one thing i would like to see the va do is to give a film by pbs called the wounded presume you can google it and pick it up, but they show everyone working for the va. that isn't familiar with what they're teaching were trying to help but teaching with ptsd the

have no idea what ptsd is. if they would show them the mandatory video wife think that was a big help to make them understand what they are dealing with that come to see them because pbs to think for about a year or something like that and it shows what happens to people who have ptsd and come home with it. without care. >> unfortunately we've probably got into the end of the program. you fall weighted very patiently. can i ask the people on the panel would you be available a few minutes afterwards if any of you want to come and talk to these people? this is the a team and so if you have questions i would say, of afterwards but we do have to break. if i could summarize i think there are a number of things people have said. mental health is a bigger problem we are addressing it. we've never recognized in previous conflicts in world war

ii or viet nam but we are bent least identifying it but we have a long way to go. second, the stigma attached to it. third would be the whole issue of family. support for family. the people as april said, the caregivers who are giving the care often have a lot of problems as well as a result of their wounded warrior is coming home. and then, probably said it best we have the programs out there but everybody needs to talk to each other. thank you all very much for participating in this panel. i think we've learned a lot, and i want to thank everyone here. dr. bowers, general adkins, the cute single guy. [laughter] >> i was going to say am i a doctor now? >> dr. brown. and the senatorrom

the night can be summed up by from georgia who said it's only.

worth fighting and there's something to fight for. we've basically resolved this ansue, mr. president. l tiwant to recognize -- excuse aa me. i want to recognize thexpert leadership of senator landrieu.l appropriations and is oure expes on disaster and has done v a wonderful job of maintainingou this through the eyes of the public. we established beyond a shadow of a a doubt and got 36 votes wg couldn't pass it a matter what happens. with today's votes we are showing they are back at thetook house vote. on the offsetting spending in 2001. a that is the vlsote we just took the to the news also plans points to a way out to the fema administrators to say that theli disaster has enough money to last through this fiscal year. m

will be able to get through the week without additional funding. that means they can get throughy the fiscal year without more money. out. we are running this i think it's very clear this is the right way to go.eat what i it shows us the way out and we no longer have to fight over thn 2011 funding. i repeat what i said, 201 mr. president, at the very beginning, and that is the way out is to focus on 2012.nds -- s if we no longer need the 2011 funding then we can pass a bill. for nc2012. this compromise should satisfy republicans and includes thefsee owned 2012 founding member and it should set aside the democrats because it doesn't include the offsets that we've talked about so much here.anothd we couldn't and without another government crisis. i appreciate senator mcconnelldi working with us in this regard but i am before i startedere is

senator johnny isaacson. ght. let's fight on something to off: fight it. there is nothing to fight about tonight. >> mr. president? >> republican leader.onnell: i'g >> i'm going to briefly walk usw through where we have been and where we are. think after two nights a vote the path get forward is clear. disaste the way to get all the disasters funds it needs and put an end to any talk of government shut dowe would have been for the senate to pass right away.w, the other side will not agree tt that.h is earlier today fema indicated itw has the funds it needs for the duration of i the current whichs this week without the billions more in funding of democratscans calling for.pend the quite frankly this is aeal vindication what republicansl a have been saying all along but l before we spend the taxpayers' money we shouldd. have a realuge

accounting, real accounting of what is actually needed.th we alatso believe in these daysf prioritize our spending around here. that said, with this next vote i think the majority leader has fm found a path forward, one that will continue to fund the government at which gives the funds it needs without any added the emergency spending for the rest of this current fiscal n year, and other words this weekn emergency funds fema now says is doesn't need. so tonight, we will have had after the next vote to votes,std one to reject the deficite, and finance o funding without elsewhere, and one to keep theb. government operational and provide the response will disaster funding into november. top line we agreed to last summer. we've already basically voted on this top line. to

will provide fema $2.65 million it wl not year to continue but recovery o efforts to read it will not contain any emergency spending n pr drop both of the emergencyain, m spending and the provisions paying for that spending from the house passed a bill.ce again my preferred path for word would have been to pass theve ts house bill but since our friendp on the the side rejected thatent compromise that is a reasonable to keep the government operational. so now that we've demonstrated there are enough votes to v support more on offset spending, i'm going to vote and would urge my colleagues to vote in favor my of the clean cr which is the next vote we are going to have.y in my view this entire fire drill is completely and totally unnecessary but i'm glad a resolution appears to be at hand. estimate after the votes

extending its total spending for november 18th, senate democratic leaders met with reporters about 20 minutes. >> i'm certainly happy republicans and democrats were able to reach a bipartisan agreement. we've accomplished a number of important things in this agreement. we got payments needed for the next six weeks which protects the people all over this country which badly need help. we saved 45,000 american jobs. we've presented the damage of the government shut down.

i'm very happy that 26 republicans joined us tonight doing the right thing to help disaster victims without further delay. in times of crisis for our fellow americans the most important thing is to make sure they get the resources they need without delay and not engage in partisan posture. i'm satisfied tonight we headed to the principle. we should never choose between american jobs and aiding the disaster victims. we shouldn't have to choose between american jobs and having people understand the government can function. we should never have to choose between american jobs and disaster victims. since 1990, we have rarely

handled this funding outside the way of any budget process. that's because helping americans with lost homes and loved ones to mutual disaster has always been and should be above politics read this i repeat insurers fema will have the funding the need for food and shelter to those people who's been affected by this disaster, and we can restart the program brought to a screeching halt in joplin misery and in illinois, north carolina, all over texas, and of course in louisiana, which has been devastated. we are also not over the devastation of the tropical storm. people in new york, vermont, new hampshire felt that very much and of course the hurricane irene there's still the damage from that.

my hope is the house is going to come back from their little break here and complete this work as fast as they can. it's certainly something the country needs and i can't understand how they could have a question about what we need to do now. senator schumer? >> thank you. first i want to thank you, leader, for being as usual, your persistent and abominable self working from last week to make sure that we got this done. mary landrieu has just been an amazing leader on this issue. just hearing her on the floor again, convinced of the importance of getting the funds and never giving up until we got them. debbie stabenow made it clear to the caucus how important the job as portion of the bill was and how to trade jobs on the one hand to help victims on the other was unfair and wrong and she succeeded and congratulations to you.

now it took longer than i should have that for the disaster victims across the country help is on the way. all of us hope disaster aid would have been settled two weeks ago when the senate acted in a bipartisan way on a package to fully fund fema. but the house insisted on a different approach that complicated matters needlessly. against the urging of many of their own party blocking the house to hold that to impose a political agenda but to insisted that we sacrifice critical jobs programs in order to afford aid for hurricane victims putting the poor victims of the hurricane against workers who just found work because of the successful jobs program. last thursday night, the caucus met and decided that this was a false choice. it went against history and any sense of fairness. it was the wrong precedent to

set, won the would jeopardize the approval of disaster aid funds in the future. had we agreed to with the house wanted to do the next time say they were victims of an earthquake would people say you have to cut education before we help the earthquake victims. so we have forged a path forward tonight, a bipartisan deal in the senate along with some updated accounting by fema has helped us reach a breakthrough. we expect the speedy passage of this agreement by the house so that the flow of disaster aid is not interrupted. it is hard to see how the house republicans could object this proposal given the overwhelming vote that they received in the senate receiving the majority of both parties, which doesn't happen on major bills that often these days. make no mistake this is not a long-term solution. we will need to return to

provide funds for disaster aid. the administration's fiscal year 12 request four fema after all was 4.6 billion this deal does not fully meet that request. but because this agreement future efforts to provide the funds it needs with the funds it needs will be less filled with politics. republicans have never attempted to demand funds for fiscal year 12 be offset. next week we will enter a new fiscal year. the biggest hold up to the deal will be in on factor because we will be in fiscal year 12th when we revisit the issue of the disaster aid down the road. >> thank you cementer read and senator schumer for helping the

democratic party find the backbone eight the debt to fight and win partially but fight and win the debate. the vote in the senate tonight rejected the doctrine which was a dangerous doctrine which would have put us in a very, very tough position in all future disasters. i also want to thank senator stabenow who was tireless in her efforts and work and speeches on the floor to remind us all how important this advanced technology program is. how many jobs we created in our country and the unnecessary sort of mean-spirited approach that came through from some warning to get the program even though sending letters in support of it for projects to be funded in their own districts. so we have moved past and we've

kept the government operating. we had a very strong bipartisan vote on this and i thank the leader for giving us the opportunity and the time it took to get this message out and to actually win on this issue. thank you. >> our jobs expert. >> i want to thank cementer read for his tenacious site to make sure we were protecting american jobs and at the same time helping victims of hurricanes and floods and tornadoes across the country. senator schumer for his equal tenacity and senator landrieu for whom very strong leadership as well for those across the country 48 states where people have found themselves this year in some kind of a rather emergency -- whether emergency

three, it added insult to injury when the republicans were fleeing from games by hurting those with a job the emergency and that is what they're doing. it's an emergency when you lose your job and can't put food on the table for your family and when you spend hours and hours trying to find a job, and are not successful and it is an emergency when you are losing jobs, making things to other countries because we don't have a strategy. the advanced technology vehicle program was put in place to help us as we move to smaller more fuel efficient vehicles, electric plug and and so on to make sure we are making them here, not overseas. this is a retooling program to go into communities plants have closed and factories are about to be closed, to support the retooling of those new kind of

vehicles, and it's working. we've saved or edit 41,000 jobs to date. we have wonderful stories. the first was given to ford motor company and is bringing jobs back from mexico and indicated to me today they are bringing jobs back from other countries as well. the next 11 possible loans were about ready to be given that would add somewhere between 40 to 50,000 more good paying american jobs making things in america. and so that was part of this fight as well and i want to think the u.s. chamber and businesses and the national association of manufacturers. the program is the next several of what the government industry partnerships can accomplish. it has helped create and preserve thousands of jobs and put the nation on a path towards greater energy security.

the funding would hurt manufacturers and their employees. so this is something clearly manufacturers large or small across the country understand as a part of our commitment and again i want to thank senator reid, senator schumer, satchel landrieu, our house dhaka colleagues plan to stand with us and take the fight as well. i think we made a very important day to night about helping those who need help as a result of weather disasters but also standing up for people who lost their jobs and want us to continue to make things in america. >> senator reid, if you spoke to speaker boehner about what you were going to ask the house to do can you briefly operationally explain what this works and how the house has to go through the october 4th portion? >> sure. my staff has been in touch with

his staff. i've had conversations, i shared with senator schumer who we've talked many times over the weekend. he will have to talk to the speaker yourself on anything further but we have had conversations as we always do through the staff. door second question is pretty simple. tonight we passed a bill that functions until november 18th. in case there house has poor judgment i'm not coming back this weekend confirming this when he passed until tuesday. >> what senators have expressed concerns about accounting chiarelli i realize it is your cost but are they getting in a political? >> listened, you've been around

most as anyone in this room they were not desperate, only to appropriations tough on republican, democrat, how does the senate do things on a daily basis about the problems fema has come in and we know that they can function until tomorrow basically to do it friday. it's not that big a deal. >> they had to cut back. >> the had to cut back on projects and give money to the most immediate disasters. >> they were working principally the last week and a tropical storm lee and hurricane ike marine science satisfied with what fema is doing.

there is no institution more forthcoming. briefings every day this past week. >> can you tell us when you will [inaudible] >> we are going to next week at least start our work on the trade matters. i don't think there is anything more important than the china's trade and that is why we are going to work on. the china trade is a jobs bill that's long overdue. it's a good purpose of bill and i feel very comfortable we are going to pass that. now, we understand that there's conversations going on about the president's jobs bill which i support on. but let's get some of these things done we have to get on

first. >> [inaudible] >> billions of dollars. >> any guarantees they won't cut off the further needs they might have or would that violate? >> i would have to say that if they want to go through this again they are looking for more losses. this has been -- i can't imagine how they would want to try this again. the american people are just so upset. why haven't we got in this town after spending three months on the deficit reduction package how can they manipulate what we had last towards the end of last july but they did that. i can't imagine that they would try it again.

i don't think that they have been very happy, from the house. any other questions? >> i've already heard such criticism to say that democrats here had a decision in the the decision they made was to cut fema and the house and over to protect a billion dollars in corporate subsidies. >> could you write on their a digit? [laughter] >> would you like to say something? >> somebody told me in vermont this morning the expressions of this. i said these people are going to write a blank check to build roads and bridges in iraq and

afghanistan. for the people of iraq and afghanistan don't blow them up the one the money to build the roads and bridges in america we guarantee will keep them intact. [inaudible] >> to make sure we understand we feel totally comfortable. remember, this -- unsury, the president in his budget asked for 4.6 billion for the whole year. we got to quit 6 billion just the first couple of weeks in november. >> i think it's important we -- >> he you don't want to -- [inaudible] >> we will keep the laughing

there, okay? thanks very much. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

the head of the training mission in afghanistan says several local police officers sacrificed themselves in order to stop suicide bombers on the day the u.s. embassy was attacked. lieutenant-general david caldwell spoke with reporters for 45 minutes. >> good morning year and good evening and afghanistan to revive like to welcome back to the briefing room lieutenant general caldwell, a nato training mission afghanistan and

combined security transition command and afghanistan. general caldwell assumed in november 2009 when he activated his multinational command in partnership with the afghan ministry defense and ministry of interior. now nearly 22 months later he joins from the headquarters in kabul to provide an update on the training and development of the afghan national security force. uniques opening comments and then we will take your questions. with that i will turn it over to him. general? >> okay. thanks, george. i assume you all can't hear me okay. let me start by saying i appreciate this opportunity as the ability to come back and talk to you it's been well over a year since i last talked to the press corps but there has been significant changes that have occurred not only the last year but the last two years i look back. two years ago when we made the decision nato did the training

in afghanistan to make sure we had the right resources with the right strategy and the right people with the right skill sets and put the right organization in place that enable us to get after the mission so critical so much so that today i consider returning investment we are starting to see is pretty significant from the efforts made over the last year's but the men and women of the international community. to me it is a clear sign the russians are moving forward and will have the ability from december, 2014 to assume the lead in their country. when i say tremendous progress has been made by guest to put in perspective, september, 2009 on the 800 young men decided they want to join the afghan national army. the past month in september we had over 8,000 young men decide to join the afghan army and that's not something that just happened this month. it's been going on since december of 2009 when we've had

more than ample recruits every month volunteering to join and become a part of the afghan national army and police. over the last 23 months almost now we've grown the etkin police and army by over 114,000 new personnel into each of those forces which are really helping the afghans move forward. very often you hear of the surge we call it the afghan surge which is starting to make a tremendous difference here today in afghanistan and in a set of conditions that enable the drawdown of the combat forces that will start taking place this december and then in greater numbers next year. we've also seen the geographic transition start to take place. again seven areas already at this point obviously with more coming in the fall. the one thing i will tell you the mission has been able to do is get things standardized. there's a lot of individual efforts and a great pockets of

excellence over of the country in different areas but the one thing the training was able to do is to get a standardized program instruction set not only for the army but also now for the police force to afghanistan, a major step forward in their everybody around afghanistan today is now receiving the same identical kind of police training. we've reduced the and to and police that we found in 2009 from about 50,000 to but never gone through the formal police training to about 20,000 today. a significant step forward still more to go obviously but there is a plan in place and we are methodically getting that and bringing them out of the force to the formal training system and putting them through the eight weeks of training and then returning them back where they've come from. we've increased the civilian trainers. when we stop the command of november to those of nine we had won such a leading trainer in this organization of about 1200

people. today we have over 525 civilian police trainers. these are the canadian mounties from the united kingdom, these are from throughout europe so it has made a significant up with and we've even had feel strongly in federal police start to join in contributing to this effort. the other thing we've worked hard at is going from what was in all contract based training program basically here in the fall of 2009 to the coalition training program now revolving interim afghan led training program. today we have over three those and 100 afghans assigned in training instructor positions with a deliberate approved pergamus certification that takes place and today with just over half of those about 1500 having been certified for that of a reprocess with the others

still going through a venture leaving to the escalating to december 2012 for the afghans will be in the lead for training at the very basic level all of the training institutions here in afghanistan which will begin another sycophant step forward giving the capacity and capability to make the same long term and enduring thing and developing the trainers has been a key but the institutions have been the hallmark of what we have done. since they when we said our number-one priority is leader development and we've trained just over 50,000 new army officers and commission officers and added to the forests where there's a sycophant tetris at that existed in 2009 to read while we were growing the force, the 114,000 additional folks almost half of them had been leaders we've been able to put into that force which is now starting to make a difference out there and how they are not on the performing and more

importantly how they are starting to professionalize. the institutions that we put into place there was the national military academy of afghanistan in place already that we have extended to the first class of the students this past march and that will now remain in effect for the out years. we stopped and the eight schools for the police and the army. a sufficient number today that were able to produce the required officers for each of those organizations and then we have other things going on for no officer courses to the national police academy of afghanistan and as you might have heard in 2015 we will stand up what we are called steve hurst in the stand which will replace in the schools for the one-year officer program that will also then continue feeding the leaders and to this army and the out years. again if we want this investment that's being made to endure its going to be critical we stand up those institutions that enable that to happen and that's what

we are doing for those development programs. we've also sort of deliberate in this force we are developing a first time important specialty skills out there that are essentials. we started developing combat forces first and now we're getting to the challenging and difficult area of developing specialty skills. this past may we opened up the last of our 12th specialty vocational schools doing everything from engineering, human resources, communications, those kind of skill sets are essentials for the police and army forces. again to be more professionalized and selfs' standing on their own we've been able to do this by putting a robust literacy program. again, when you look at the fact that every recruit we bring only about 18% are illiterate in other words, only maybe 1.8 out of every ten can read and write.

that means at least eight of them have no idea what a number or letter is. they can't read this a real number on their weapon or a name to do any kind of maintenance. they can't tell the money they are paid. they don't understand that the equivalent of the inventory listed so the program they're moving into effect in about march of 2010 is now starting to reap rewards. we have over 3,000 of can teachers we hired that work for our organization full time and again that number is increasing over time but the literacy rate has been dramatically increasing over the last six to eight months as we implemented the system we've not trained over 120,000 afghans into some form of literacy training that are currently today now serving out in this course of about 305,000. by this december we estimate about half of the afghan army and police will have received some form of literacy training that they didn't have before

they came into the military or the police force and again this sets the foundation enabling us to get devotee of rationalization that is important long-term and we are continuing the force we realize we have been spending time getting advances in areas like the growth objectives. we know that in 2011 the army and police will be it the objectives established for them and will in fact state it to the goal of 356,000 moving towards 352,000 by 41 october of next year. we know that we now have the systems in place that we need to do the professional position of the force the leader development programs, the things we are still working on right now. they are going to be challenging but that's what we have deliberately put into the plan as getting after logistics and maintenance and medical. those are three areas we will

start focusing more and more on. again, with the foundation being literacy in order to do those specialty skill training still standing up the system to make them more robust and independent but bring it today. so specialty skills as an area to continue to focus on. stewardship. there's been an investment by the international community over its last couple of weeks of getting them infrastructure and equipment and material. we now need to make sure that to become good stewards of this and to continue to keep good control over that. we are also going to start working on sustainable systems and todd talked about the maintenance and logistics and medical the degette are going to be so important. i will tell you after four years when you look what we have learned from this it's become apparent that the number one thing in a mission like this is leader development. if you have got able and capable

leaders it doesn't matter what kind of material you have or what kind of institution our conditions had, you could build anything if you got cable leaders. so it has been and continues to be our number one priority. the second thing is the importance of literacy. i've told this story many times of the fact that when i arrived here became very apparent within the first three or four months thanks to the late ambassador richard holbrooke who continually talked to me about this issue that no one had taken it on and he was right. if you have that foundation did you have the ability to move forward and we start the professional as asian. there would be the relevance of nato. you get out and i will tell you had it not been for this nato organization we would have been unable to achieve and accomplish the mission we set out to do.

we started with two nations and we now have 37 different nations contributing the trainers on the ground as a part of our effort about one, do you think that one sixth of the world's country is bald in this training effort in afghanistan? and again we went from literally one police professional to 525, an ability to really get out to accomplish the police mission. what i did see is that kind of gives you a recap of where we spend a last two years and some of the challenges that we see as we continue moving forward but if i could i would turn it back over to you what this time, george. >> thank you for that recap and we will go with at search with questions. i will call on the customers here in the pentagon and briefing room. >> can you give us an idea of how you assess the afghan security forces in these recent

attacks in kabul including the one on the u.s. embassy and the nato headquarters and in the second question is can you also tell us how is the ethnic balance involved in the force and do you think they do have addressed the shortage of the past jones that was a concern. >> all right. thanks. you know what i would tell you is again, i've been on the ground almost two years now. as i've watched the response by the securities horse's back in college the thing i would tell you is they are learning from each incident and adapting. they are getting better each time. this recent attack was the most flexible lysol in terms of how they handled that with a very deliberate in the methodical approach as the ambassador calls it that occurred on the embassy there but how they tipped down the building to make its a

civilian casualties and damage to the private property as they took down the facility. but i was very impressed. >> but we still learn lessons from that? >> we sure do. we were able to be attending and part of what hour of cans and she will show areas when she can continue to refine but it was interesting to watch. what struck me about the first september attack is the fact that for the first time you really did see the police force out there learning to serve and protect the people. they were willing to leave their lives down for the people of afghanistan. what you don't hear. much in the press are the stories about the police that gave their lives that day. there were suicide bombers around the city mostly about a 30 minutes period that they all lack of it themselves. there was one of the local high school. the suicide bomber was moving into the crowd were the students

were and he went in and literally took its from the suicide bomber when he blew himself up and he killed himself but he was able to give his life to help protect the people of afghanistan. now is that a police officer by the name of john. over the headquarters in town when a suicide bombers approach they are able to shoot and kill one of them but the other was able to get in close and again there's a senior, officer who did the expect same thing. he ran up and hugged a suicide bomber so that made himself, not only him and his bomber were killed in the theater and, soldiers received minor injuries and it's inevitable where the nemesis is the bomber. again, police officials approached what they thought was a suspect of their.

one was killed and the other was wounded but they were able to kill the suicide bomber before he was able to set off his mom. so on that very day in delta pulled places for it around here in kabul, the policemen. on the ethnic balance piece of i tell you is we do continue to watch that very closely. it is fairly balanced out there on the forces. we watch it between honestly the different ethnicities and the pashtu and say and the desire for everybody else. the southern pashtu and is what we do still have a very intense focus on to raise the level and the numbers that we are able to recruit and i think we ought to talk about the afghans. we had a good proportion about

40% of the afghan national army today is composed of pashtuns but they are not all from the south. the best recruiting that they have ever had bringing in the southern pasterns into the afghan national army and again that's because last fall the minister of defense made a conscious effort and put in the two quarters in the south and eg was a southern pashtu himself could do more outreach to the community and in gage with local builders, don't encourage the young woman the are encouraged to surf nbra and get the recruiting job in the south. so an upward climb, not where it needs to be yet the clear is it's improving slowly but steadily and over time if it keeps moving like that then we will start seeing a much better representation of the southern pashtuns than we do today.

i want to ask about this estimate cost issue. admiral mike mahlon said last week that there is now an effort to reduce the cost from around 12 billion i think to about 70 or 80%. i guess my questions are how long do you think you can go there without jeopardize and the ability of the anap once they draw on and second, where do you give up by going with such dramatic reductions? i realize over time there is an actual reduction but it seems like going that locates into the core capabilities here. >> well, i would never have thought two years ago i would know as much as money and program as i do today. but we spent a tremendous amount of time actually looking at costs and we go out about seven years through the modelling effort that we use here that we run in the interim basis

obviously changing the variables of the time but i can tell you that in the out years which you normally hear is the long-term sustainable cost to 352,000 persons, afghan national security force is about $60 billion is what generally has been said and agreed upon as the long-term cost out there. but i will tell you from the efforts that have been ongoing here the big ones are significantly lower than that. the last two years we had a tremendous effort making sure things we call the cash principle here. how do you make it more cable, cable for the afghans, not for us. affordable, again, not for us because we have sufficient funding but how do you make it affordable for the afghans? most importantly, how is it sustainable by that. do they have the ability to sustain this with which we are giving them? ..

>> it will go down and there

could be some reduction to the afghan national security force and obviously that would generate much sustainable the way constantly of look at sources from the international community to pay long term for the government afghanistan itself and the contributions of the united states would start consistent to put into place affordable and sustainable so vague turnaround and a dozen of the american and taxpayer. >> how well below $6 billion it is practical to go without getting a significant capability? >>

>> you don't give up any capability at all as configured today and in the out years coming from multiple sources now, not just united states, i am not sure it will be that expensive per broker a great example called afghan first started 18 months ago buy we buying boots from the united states for hundreds of thousands of men? each 1s $170 by the time we got them here in issued them. why don't we help a factory here to make boots with a sound quality control standard? we started at 18 months ago there is of the factory we buy your boots from and get them 1/3 the cost. is the enormous savings rate there.

we did the same things with the uniforms buying all of those out of theater. we found people who were willing to stand up for business and we signed contracts saying we would buy so much as they could meet a certain quality of standard of production and brought in outside experts to do nothing but quality control checks with the afghan factories here in afghanistan doing our clothing, of boots, sheets, pillowcases, the best estimate is on an annual basis we're saving $168 million per year, each year by being able to procure the equipment made in afghanistan to the same quality standard. i wear a pair of afghan putin have been seven months and it is good as we saw and now there are three boot

factories and they started to diversify now noncommercial that would help to be long-term sustainable to produce sandals, tennis shoes but today we have seen over $650 million of we were program to spend a because of the afghan first initiatives we are still buying the same quality and quantity that we have always wanted to get for the afghan security four. >> could you talk about how many afghan army battalions you have now and how many can operate independently? >> let me think. today independently, burying

degrees of how we can operate. but there is some coalition assistance and then as you ask about independently all by themselves, i will go back and verify the exact numbers with those that are currently today operating by themselves without any kind of coalition support but there is another that a fact we are responsible to bring the initial operating capability but it is the field enforcement to full operational capability and that field and partner that helps to continue to evolves and develop.

with time can operate independently. only because i watch this on a monthly basis over two years i can tell you by december 2014 they will have the ability here in afghanistan but it will still take some support. and to provide intelligence support and air support and those type of activities and we don't see that as a long-term necessity for their security force. >> at the day total number? >> i would have to double

check maybe 180 today? >> khoo -- expressing concern the attrition rate was 1.4% for month and then testifying it was 3% what accounts for the increase how can that the combat and to document those land grabs to bring them into your training? >> >> let me talk about attrition still meant the first question is it is attrition to high that we cannot meet our growth

objectives? >> knollwood is not. and then to make the october 2010 and 2012 growth objectives of 300,000 and 350,000. i am comfortable that will happen. the attrition of 1.4% is the goal that we said. that is agreed upon to bring police and army down at to make it sustainable in the out years. today they do have attrition of 1.4%. they are there. there are elements that are even lower. the one that had the most remarkable progress is the afghan civil order police. they were a negative flow of personnel at this month they were at 30% annualized basis. significant over the last two years negative

120 percent down at 30% but it needs to go lower. you want to get it about 16% annually sell it is sustainable in the out years. we have trainer's coming in specifically about 120 that will be here this fall that we will partner with the fbn units to continue to help them develop and professionalize. a tremendous downward trend but needs to come lower. there is not an issue there but the army is where attrition is watched carefully. it has been steady all the we have not seen the decline. as i talk to the afghan leadership it is really about leadership to take care of soldiers and living conditions are appropriate

in the food is right and then raise the time and time again and a kandahar attrition is 1.2%. tremendous leader focus , in then they continue to serve. coming in at 8,000 per month. we turn away 1000 + every single month we don't even allow entry into the training base because they don't meet standards and and also requiring sell many per month so it is something that we've watched carefully but recognize it was 95,002 years ago and today almost

doubling in size and then another truck-- 25,000 so the rapid growth and expansion can lead to challenges but leading to the next october to have that settle down to drop down. now on the human rights watch report i have heard some things about it but i will tell you what we have done is because of this report for human rights training just look at what we did with the afghan national police with the overall polices itself we went to aa week program and

then we added 18 more hours of human rights training because we recognize that is something you want to reinforce in a country that has experienced 30 years of civil war and the element that has a responsibility to do that training and oversight, the special operations element understands this needs to be reinforced. we do take these allegations very seriously as alleged and they do know and we have been helping them as other elements are specifically getting at that internationally recognized and certified but whenever you normally find coalition forces you find that

everything sue their own actions in daily contact. >> so you will not take on the edge training? >> we have not been asked to from this point* in then at this point* the special four since element that sees with that report says and we take this seriously and with those modifications as they move forward and with the minister of interior, they

have the oversight responsibility and what we have been doing a day is retreating to have three teams in these districts from the minister of interior we have been doing retraining with them so we know better what they should be looking for. >> hello general. from mts owe english. thank you for doing this briefing. could you assess the intelligence gathering capability of the afghan four since then light of the incidents in kabul and what kind of things would you consider doing in the future to approve intelligence gathering? >> first of all, there is a tremendous amount attacks

that have been planned and introjected by intel services whether the national director of our other intel elements that are out there. we do have a program we are involved with to teach human until collection that is pretty robust operating through the country and out of the south and east that we are involved with human intelligence collection to develop networks to enable them to deter these things. part of that has been very successful, there is far more attacks been planned and executed and people picked up that could ever execute because of the

after. you don't own a here about those things but they go one at this time. we also have a school that we set up so now units that can go out into the army but that is only during the last six months we have put those out to the formation and the other part is the different ministries mentally the national director themselves but also between what has not been there in the past. that is starting to call. the last part is biometric sparc go they now have a data base too rapidly for a process of a job or work

their way into the army or six somebody up then take the biometric says and send you back to the data base comparing it too whenever was then the afghan national database from u.s. intelligence resources. there is the intel effort more than adequate for what they need in afghanistan we say mostly within the defense of the interior. >> we have two more questions. >> i am from nbc news. one clarification on tom's question earlier that there are two independent -- to be clear their operating without any logistical or

medical support from the coalition and can you tell us roughly what part they are traveling in the country? >> as far as where they are i will come back all sligh monitor closely i collect that data so we are aware to produce forces in the future the it when i say independently and at 12 mislead anybody there is no coalition support we say 2014 when the afghans take the lead for security there will still be true today for those operate independently we have not fully developed the logistic system and the

main ancestor medical system those are areas we are still focused on with a very deliberate plan this is the year we take that on the have an additional 800 people and trainers inbound that you hear of the reduction of force to do the uplift of another 800 people by a march to get at the specialty skills that are very important we have to our three years to get involved so they are better to operate without taste for their support but today they have not been able to do that yet to. >> buy-back to the question of financial support, i did i hear you correctly that

your projections suggest you will need 6 billion per year to support them and if you can go lower than how much before you will jeopardize the capability needed? >> 6 billion is the maximum and on the out years wants it is fully operational operational, long-term systemic cost from the afghans themselves but there's a lot of variables out there. when we say that number, that is nothing changing and we do expects the level of the insurgency to go down and we expect to find more efficiencies how

we operate that to cut long-term costs. there is a lot of period -- variables we have been directed don't sacrifice your capability to make sure they have the same capacity that they have today as we do this for ago so looking at the long term costs but to going down to lose such a level but maybe 500 mar 100 those sent less that the it you know, for whatever reason putting her conditioners and most of those places, in today we

don't do that. we put and fans and realize what is right for afghanistan and sustainable and affordable every time reply been a h. vacua you have human capital to maintain to supply and the fuel required that has to be delivered, purchased, it goes on and on and the enormous costs associated so we do keep looking to say how to get the best return on this investment so the out years ihop the most stable the lowest cost but given them the same capability. that is a big part but there are so many variables in the out years although it would not be more than that but clearly less than that amount. >> we will wrap things up are there any final thoughts you like to

share with our friends in the pentagon briefing room before you get back to your duties? >> first of all, thank you for this opportunity. we do most everything in the unclassified manner. if you have any follow-up questions are information we would be glad to provide answers we will look we have that readily available if this is not available at my a fingertips.

i am still curious of the challenges that lie out there had of us. but sector being on the ground for two years the looking with the afghan people and then to see more afghans in the levying responsible for a training site other a senior afghan official how to work more effectively like what we saw a on the 13 deeds by the afghan police to give their lives in this case it was what we did not see that they talk themselves how they get better but they do.

with the understanding it is the key to make a difference in this country and as a take on the programs to the point* we now start to bring to a strict police chiefs back for refresher courses the three or five weeks taught by the police and everybody working in tandem together. we will start to see a real difference in their performance and is give hope for the future what the country may have ahead of itself. >> once again thank-you in for all of you in the briefing room for joining us. have a good day.

[inaudible conversations] and. >> ladies and gentlemen, we will get a start and i hope everybody had a chance to get coffee and issues. it is time for the first panel discussion and community reintegration and challenges back home. we have our moderator at

katie mcfarlane to appears frequently on fox news, fox business and numerous radio programs and also the host of fox news.com one of the internet most popular national security shows and has served on those pose for several presidential of ministrations to include nixon ford am president reagan and to receive the defense department's highest civilian award for her work in the reagan a frustration. a graduate of georgia graduate -- from the m.i.t. concentrating on nuclear weapons in china and the soviet union and a big significance the mother of five proud of all of them but i understand one is a resend graduate of the naval academy in the surface warfare business on the west coast. it is my distinct honor pleasure