i want to say something about general shinseki. i first met him when i went on an intelligence visit to sarajevo, and he was leading the fight in the balkans. i saw him, this strong leader, cared so much about his troops. effective leadership. we were in awe of him as a commander, and we are in awe of him as secretary of veterans affairs. because he knows how to lead, and he cares about our veterans, as secretary jesse pointed out so clearly. so i want to acknowledge his leadership. and that of president obama's as well and mrs. obama and dr. joe biden as well for caring for our military families. -- and dr. jill biden as well. [applause] when we visited general shinseki on the battlefield, i was reminded of the say in the military, on the battlefield, we need no soldiers in kind. and we say in congress, and when they come home, we leave no veterans behind. no veterans behind. [applause] for us in congress, every day is veterans day. because every day we understand the moral obligation we have to our veterans for making as the home

i am here on behalf of my boss, secretary shinseki. i want to make a comment about his commitment to this. when he was sworn in two years ago, he said one of his primary goals as secretary was to end homelessness by 2015. that is an incredible statement. he said we would end homelessness. that is going to happen not because he said it or because i am here. that is going to happen because of the passion of the local people dealing with this all across the country. it is the people's passion that will make this happen. this is a difficult situation. it will be easy to turn a blind eye to it. it would be easy to ignore it. it would be easy to blame them. we could put a token effort or mandate on it to say we did something. or we can take this on as a national commitment. it is our call. it is your call. i think the fact that you are here today, the work you do every day, says a lot about who we are as americans and how we will continue to support those who have answered our nation's call. we do not owe this to the veterans. as you heard,

um, secretary shinseki has taken on this goal himself, has brought in the support of the governors of states. we're now getting data on a more timely basis that talks about veteran suicide, and we're able to put that together and come up with some estimates which, um, you've seen. and you've seen the estimated numbers of 18 veterans a day dying by suicide. honestly, i don't know if, how correct we are in that it's our best guess. right now. um, i also want to address the title of the report, um, a little bit. i think as long as any veteran or service member dies by suicide, we are, in fact, losing the battle. but i do maintain that we've made huge strides towards winning the war over the past several years. and, um, we will continue to do that. the va has taken the stance that suicide prevention is based on ready access to high quality mental health care. and to that end we've instituted a whole series of programs that i won't, um, go into now but certainly am available to talk to any of you about it anytime. probably the most visible, um, access mechanism that we've instituted, um, i

the secretary is part of the homeless council, and so is checketts terry -- secretary shinseki. are working on that as hard as we can, and within dol we had special programs -- we have special programs. we have homeless veterans reintegration programs, pretty successful programs. bringing in veterans to a certain site, helping them not only do with the fact they are unemployed and on the street, but the first thing we got to do is we got to get rid of those "demons," and i will use crist for second. -- chris for a second. >> i am the demon. >> the point being, when he first transitioned in, coming from a hard life that happened to him, those first few months -- correct me if i'm wrong -- were a little tough to get over. >> a little. >> he has not changed. the fact of the matter is you have to be able to deal with all those issues before you can get a person to move on. before you can actually do anything. i do not care if you are the best player in the world pick if you do not understand that, if he did not understand that culture, if you did not understand where they are coming

folks like secretary shinseki who is an amputee and has led the charge along with gentlemen like general retired fred franks that amputees can continue to serve and other wounded, ill and injured soldiers continue to serve in our military. we have a number of cases of posttraumatic stress, we have traumatic brain injuries in significant numbers from the type of the war that we're fighting. and another topic many of you may know that we have been engaged in, i'm sure s the repeal of don't ask, don't tell, and i saturday on the commission that reviewed that for over a year with the general counsel of the department of defense, jay johnson, and it was recently repealed. and i think the army, our military will do just fine. we're working on a topic near and dear to my heart, and that's women in our military and how they serve and where they serve. we still have policies that talk about the front line of troops which women are well beyond, and we don't serve, and we don't fight in that fashion anymore. so we've got to review our policies on women. religious accommodations, we're about potenti