women have been in all of our major wars all the way from iraq to you and jessica lynch is the first p.o.w., woman taken in iraq for example. so let's go back to this whole issue because as you know one of the things i have been working on as the ranking woman on all the military issues in the house of representatives and for 15 years now my entire service in the congress being on the armed services committee, i have been really watching and seeing how the role of the woman is within the military ranks. so let's go back to something that is very important because you did something that i believe is very unique. you push the envelope in women being involved in combat in iraq. so let's talk a little bit about the first of all, what combat means. because you know some people think that women shouldn't be involved in combat. talk to me a little bit about that. >> guest: combat is an interesting thing because a lot of marines think to be in combat means you earned the combat action ribbon or you have reached a certain level or you have to be an country in order to be in combat. stepping back fr

all of the major war all the way from betsy ross making the american flag to jessica lynch as the first p.o.w. woman taken in iraq for example. so let's go back because as you know, one of the things i've been working on on all the military issues in the house of representatives for 15 years now my entire congress service on the armed service committee i have been really watching and seeing how the role of the woman is within the military rank. so, that's go back to something that's really important because you did something i believe was unique. you pushed the envelope and women being involved in combat in iraq so let's talk a little bit about first of all what combat means. because some people think women shouldn't be involved in combat. talk about that. >> guest: combat is an interesting thing because a lot of people think to be in combat means you have reached a certain level or have to be infantry in order to be in combat. stepping back from that if you look at the definition of combat, it is any offensive action against enemy or a foreign forces that result in some type of conflict. wit

first there have to be a recovery of the remains, then, after that, of course, they have been identified and there is this joint p.o.w m.i.a.agency, accounting command. and there is a very sophisticated lab and there is 560 m.i.a.s. >> he was identified, let me just say a lot of what happened has ld ht lth to do with this rapid identification process. >> right. they can help put a lot of people back. >> right. >> maybe some day there won't be a need for a statue of the unknown soldier. >> right. right. thank you very much. >> and u.s. air force pilot from the bay area and two other air men received top honors from france. and seen here in the front row was the among the three who received a french national defense gold medal with branz star. the u.s. airmen came to the rescue of a french helicopter pilot in afghanistan when their copter crashed in bad weather. >> and president obama is turning up the heat, but there is no deal on raising the nation's debt limit. take a look and there is a risk for a shut down in 17 days and about four and a half hours if there is not a deal. and there is a dwindling number of option

p.o.w.-m.i.a. issue as it related to vietnam, and we were having negotiations through the united nations security council first in new york and then in paris, and this was after tiananmen and dealing with the chinese on a direct bilateral basis was still a no-no but we were dealing with them through the u.n. and president nixon knew i was carrying out this negotiation. i was the assistant secretary for east asia at that point. and he invited me to dinner at his house in saddle river, new jersey, and he grilled me on what our objectives were in negotiating with the chinese, what were we going to do with vietnam, because he was very worried that we were going to somehow go too easy on the vietnamese and somehow compromise our dealings with the chinese, and for whatever it's worth, i think the dinner discussion reassured him and now if you look at the outcome of the cambodia settlement and the road map to normalizing with vietnam, if there was any beneficiary of that negotiation, which did get all of the major powers who had been involved in indochina since the french-colonial period, it was the chinese, because

p.o.w.-m.i.a. issue as it related to vietnam, and we were having negotiations through the united nations security council first in new york and then in paris, and this was after tiananmen and dealing with the chinese on a direct bilateral basis was still a no-no but we were dealing with them through the u.n. and president nixon knew i was carrying out this negotiation. i was the assistant secretary for east asia at that point. and he invited me to dinner at his house in saddle river, new jersey, and he grilled me on what our objectives were in negotiating with the chinese, what were we going to do with vietnam, because he was very worried that we were going to somehow go too easy on the vietnamese and somehow compromise our dealings with the chinese, and for whatever it's worth, i think the dinner discussion reassured him and now if you look at the outcome of the cambodia settlement and the road map to normalizing with vietnam, if there was any beneficiary of that negotiation, which did get all of the major powers who had been involved in indochina since the french-colonial period, it was the chinese, because