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Washington, D.C. — Today, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair, and a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, took to the Senate floor to join Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) as he holds the Senate floor in a marathon speech that has lasted 20 hours and counting. Murray spoke on the Senate floor with Booker about supporting our nation’s veterans as the Trump administration has made clear in recent weeks that they intend to pursue massive layoffs that will severely undercut the Department of Veterans Affairs and risk veterans’ benefits and care.
Senator Murray’s remarks, as delivered on the Senate floor today, are below and HERE:
“Will the Senator yield for a question?
“Well, I thank the Senator from New Jersey. Thank you for your kind words. And I would just say the country is so grateful for what you are doing right now because so many people are so frightened, worried, scared, and angry about what is happening to the basic values of this country that so many people have just thought would be there.
“That their kids would be able to go to school and get an education and not have to worry that the Department of Education was going to be gone, and there wasn’t a watchdog anymore, somebody to help them.
“Or that the research at NIH was going to be dismantled – perhaps they had a family member who was in the middle of some kind of scientific experiment that is now being dismantled.
“What happens to their hope?
“I hear from people on so many topics, seniors who are waiting on hold for hours and then getting hung up on because there’s nobody to answer the phone anymore.
“These are basic values that we have as a country, that we care for other human beings, and we’re there as a country for them.
“And you are showing that fight today and inspiring so many people, and I will ask you a question in a minute, but I want to personally thank you for what you are doing today, it is so important. You are the voice of so many people today and I so appreciate it.
“Now I want to change the dynamic a little bit. I wanted to come today, you have talked about the impact on so many areas in our country, but I wanted to come and ask about something really personal to me, and that is the impact on our veterans today.
“The Senator may not know this, but when I came to the Senate many years ago, I asked to be on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee. I was the first woman ever to ask to be on the Veterans’ Committee.
“And the reason for me was very personal, as you may know my dad was a World War II veteran and my family relied on his VA care when he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
“But I also, when I was in college during the Vietnam War, many of my friends and colleagues were on the streets demonstrating and you know my heart was out to them. But I was thinking about those men and women, my age, who were going over to Vietnam and coming back injured in many different ways.
“So I actually did my college internship, I asked to be at the Seattle VA. And I went to the Seattle VA during the Vietnam War and served on what was the psychiatric ward at the time, and I sat and worked with young men and women who were my age, in college age, who had been sent there and came back with severe mental health impacts. Now, today we call that PTSD, but at the time we didn’t know it. And I was looking at these men and women who volunteered to go over, or sometimes their number came up at the time, and came home and were going to be impacted the rest of their lives.
“And I learned firsthand what it means when somebody says, ‘I will go for my country to fight for all of you, so that you have that America that you’ve been talking about here for you when you get home.’
“And our promise to each and every one of them was, if you serve your country in the military, we will take care of you when you get home. That is a promise I hold near and dear to my heart, which is why I asked to be on the Veterans’ Committee when I first came here, first woman ever.
“And I will tell you I’ve seen the impact time and time again. I go home and I hold town halls when I was newly here, and there’d be a lot of veterans who’d come and talk to me and tell me what’s going on, what needed to be fixed.
“But always at that time, I will share with my colleagues, women never said anything. There were a few always in the back of the room, and it wasn’t until the regular meeting was over and they’d come up quietly to me and say, ‘I need to tell you what’s happening to women veterans. I need to share with you sexual assault. I need to share with you that there’s not the facilities. I go to VA and it’s a men’s only kind of place, there’s no OBGYNs, there’s nobody to do mammographies, and I often don’t feel comfortable sitting in that waiting room, with a whole lot of people, after I have had the experiences that I’ve had, and there’s no place for women to go.’
“So, we’ve worked really hard to make sure VA works for women. We’ve worked really hard to make sure VA addresses the issues of today.
“The PACT Act that we worked so hard to make sure that men and women who were victims of toxic exposure overseas got the services they need.
“I could speak for two hours here about all the things we’ve done.
“But then I see what this administration is doing to those men and women who we asked as a country to serve overseas or here at home, in service of all of us and the promises we’ve made them. And I think, what are they doing? They’re undermining the very value that all of us have given to Americans who serve above and beyond.
“So, when I hear of 2,000 layoffs a few weeks ago. I go, wow, where’s that coming from? Well, I know, because I’m getting the phone calls, like I’m sure you are, from a VA researcher who has been taken off the job, fired, unexplained, told he wasn’t doing a good enough job, somehow. Doing research on basic things like prosthetics, or doing basic research on PTSD, or doing basic research on the kinds of things that our men and women who serve overseas are subjected to and need to come home and have the specialized service and resources that they need. Or I hear from veterans who can’t get the services that they’ve then asked for.
“So now, when we are hearing this administration is about to cut 80,000, you didn’t hear me wrong, 80,000 more people from VA, a vast majority themselves are veterans.
“I wanted to ask the Senator, how does that hit you? How do you feel about that?
“Will the Senator yield for an additional question?
“The Senator is right, and so many veterans are afraid right now.
“And I had a veteran tell me that he was one of those people that got the letter, ‘you haven’t performed well.’ He worked for the National Park Service, actually, and he said, ‘I’ve been saving lives. I’ve been cleaning trails. I’ve been making sure that the National Parks are safe for all of you.’
“And then he said to me, ‘I’m a veteran. I served in the war, and I served my country there because I wanted to serve my country and my fellow Americans, and I came home and worked for the National Park Service to do the same. And now as a veteran my country is not there for me.’
“And I would just say to my colleague and to everyone who’s listening, do these men and women that we make a promise to, that we say we will be there for you when you come home. That does not mean slamming a door in your face. It doesn’t mean that you have to wait for hours to get the services that you earned. It doesn’t mean that you will be mistreated.
“It means that we will honor you, and I would thank the Senator for his response, and just say to him again, do you think we’re treating men and women in this country, us great Americans, by the actions that are being taken by this administration?”
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