ms. rubens? >> military services coordinators are located at the intake sites along with the dod dod peb-lows this an effort to insure conditions, but any claimed conditions that that veteran wants to claim. our military services coordinators are there to help walk them through that application process and understand the process. they're also there, frankly, to serve, if you will, as a touch point or a reach back to our rating activity sites so if that veteran has questions, we're capable of also getting back to that rating activity site to share information with that service member and/or their family. >> i want to go back to ms. weaver. you said the interactions happen typically as they move from phase to phase. are there huge gaps in timing of different phases? are they pretty standard as they would find in a timeline? say there's three phases in the process. does one take three-quarters of the year and the next one take a month? .. or when the informal peb is going to be completed and moved t

ms. rubens is still here and was listening to the testimony from veterans and vsos who are working within the system to serve veterans and also would note that ms. halladay and her team from the oig are here to listen, so really appreciate their attention and respect to the members who are here giving their testimony. ms. gipson, you came up with a number of really good recommendations for us and vba and dod to follow. one of them was to change a culture that can seem as though it is punishing a service member. i've heard this directly from service members at the wtu, at fort bliss in el paso. we've read of some really egregious cases where it seems that the punishment is punitive, overly punitive if not downright humiliating, and i hope those are the exceptions and not the norm. and it's part of the pressure i feel to get that wait time down which back in february was 185 additional days over the goal down to what ms. rubens has committed to in terms of what the vba can control. can you talk about from your own experiences what you have seen or witnessed within that culture and how we mi

ms. rubens and mr. murphy, i know that resources are needed. you have to make good decisions on where those resources are. i think it is very important to measure all of your resources and track those. it is an area where the undersecretary had not concurred with us in our report. we are going to stand pat with what we said. >> going back to the first point about these programs failing because so much are doing less well than expected, it is a matter of robbing peter to pay paul, isn't it? >> i have said that a number of times. rex well, great minds think alike. thank you. >> the chair recognizes mr. cook. >> thank you very much. i will not say too much more maybe. your report, very sensitive because i used to be an i.g. i looked at your recommendations. by the way i.g., that is a job how to lose friends and not influence people, i used to say. but it is one you have to have in an organization. your job is not to make friends. you already know that. what bothered me a little bit, and maybe if you can help me out, in two cases it had the vba, wh