Vets for Franken Rally

As I walked up to the Paul and Sheila Wellstone Center for the Vets for Franken rally, veterans were conducing a raising the flag ceremony. There were about 200 volunteers for Team Franken milling about and getting the last details arranged. There was one lone woman using the excersize facilities -- everyone else was there for the rally.

The speakers at the rally were Sen. Steve Murphy (DFL-Red Wing), Jim Judson (Chair, Vets for Franken), Jim Bootz (Chair DFL Veterans Caucus), Steve Sarvi (challenging Republican John Kline in the MN-02 race), Dr. Bob Meaders (founder, Operation Helmet), former Sen. Bob Kerrey and Al Franken.

I wandered around a while until I got into a conversation with Tommy Two Putt, aka Tommy Johnson, of the DFL Veteran's Caucus. A man walked up to show Tommy a picture of one of his paintings. It was in the stairway as I came down to the gymnasium where the rally was held. Pablo Basques is the artist.

Sen. Steve Murphy (DFL-Red Wing) was the emcee for the event. He opened up the event by introducing Jim Judson, Chair of Vets for Franken. Judson mentioned that his first and foremost reason for supporting Al is "he listens to people."

Next up was Jim Bootz, Chair of the DFL Veterans Caucus. The Vets Caucus came out of the 2004 Veterans for Kerry Campaign. Bootz is very proud of the work they did in 2004. Kerry won Minnesota overwhelmingly and they were proud to play their part.

"There's nothing wrong with our candidates, our campaign or our message," Bootz stated. "It's just that the Republicans have the megaphone of mainstream media, Fox News and talk radio."

He ended his speech by saying that taking care of the troops and the veterans is not an option. It must happen.

Sen. Murphy introduced Steve Sarvi next. Steve served 19 years in the Guard and is the former mayor of Watertown, MN. He is challenging Republican John Kline in the MN-02 race.

"I'm running because we're going in the wrong direction and we need to change course," he stated. "We've lost our moral compass."

"It's like if you're following a second Lieutenant into the woods. That's a scary thing in and of itself, but if you're following this second Lieutenant in the woods and you get lost, the first thing you do is stop. You stop and figure out where you are and where you need to go."

"I volunteered to go to Iraq because I was the best man to lead my men there. They were all activated, I got to choose. It was a difficult conversation to explain to my family why I was going. It was an even more difficult conversation when we got extended in March of this year."

"We did great work rebuilding over there," he explained. "Part of what I did was meet with local leaders. So there I am sitting around drinking hot coffee in 120 degree heat talking with these local leaders. They're all convinced that we're going to be there until we've squeezed every last drop of oil out of the country. I kept trying to tell them that 'no, no our President says we're not.' That was tough and even I had a hard time convincing anyone otherwise."

"Then one day after we were extended, I received my green book from Wellstone Camp . I couldn't put it down. I got so excited about running and winning. I am going to run and I am going to win."

"It is outrageous that we have so many homeless vets. It is outrageous that we have so many homeless. It is so outrageous that we have so many people without health insurance. I am going to win this race and do something about it."

Sen. Murphy next introduced Dr. Bob Meaders. When Meader's son got to Iraq, he told his Dad they didn't have the right liners for their helmets. He then refused his Dad's offer for a liner unless everyone in his unit had one. Soon after Operation Helmet was founded. They got helmet liners to 40,000 troops.

Meaders credits Al with the success of the organization. "I called Al at 6:30am one morning. Al's a little grumpy in the morning. I said something about him being a health-conscious, hippie-type and all that, shouldn't he have run his marathon that morning already and finished eating his organic grapenuts in yogurt or something? But Al understood the problem and understood what the solution should be. He had me on his radio show and has made all the difference."

Now all four branches of the military have the correct helmet liners and are better protected from traumatic brain injuries.

Sen. Kerrey began by talking about how important it is to take care of friends. "Al has been a good friend."

Kerrey looks at Washington, DC with a mixture of shame, anger and frustration. "Al makes me laugh, which is good, but he also challenge me with his intellect. When we send him to Washington, he'll continue to do that. We need that in Washington."

"Why Al?" he asked. "We need someone to speak out against injustice. He'll say that isn't right and we've got to stop it."

He talked about how the Walter Reed story is symptomatic of our problems. We're warehousing the wounded in terrible conditions. Loved one's have trouble finding vets in the system so they can visit. "Walter Reed isn't somewhere half way round the world. You can walk there from Capitol Hill ... it's not that far. We're not doing the right thing by our vets. We need to say we're going to spend what it takes to take care of them. We should be ashamed if we don't. Vets deserve the best healthcare, best education, they deserve us giving them their life back once they're done serving."

NOTE: this is the transcript of Al's remarks

Thank you for coming today. It's an honor to share this podium with these men who have served our country so well.

Sen. Steve Murphy, thank you for being here today, and thank you for your support.

Jim Judson, I look forward to working with you to reach out to veterans and their families across this state in this campaign and beyond.

Jim Bootz, thank you for what you do with the Veterans Caucus.

Steve Sarvi, thank you for your service in Iraq, and for the service you'll provide as a great Congressman.

Dr. Bob, thank you for your years as a flight surgeon, and for still serving your country to this day.

Sen. Kerrey, thank you for all your service to this nation, and also for your friendship.

I'm the only speaker today who isn't a veteran. I never served in the military. My small way of doing something has been visiting our troops overseas on USO tours. I've done seven of them. The last four Christmases, I've been to Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Doing a USO tour is nothing like serving on active duty. I don't pretend to know what it's like to face hostile fire, to leave my family for an uncertain fate, to lose friends on the battlefield. All I do is tell a few jokes and then go home.

But it's still the best thing I've ever done. I love our troops. I love how they serve with such incredible courage and dedication. I love how talented they are – not just the world's best fighting force, but the world's best mechanics, nurses, pilots, engineers, surgeons, and computer technicians. I love sharing meals with them in the DFACs, I love listening to stories about where they're from – it's almost always a small town I've never heard of – and what they've seen, and I love being able to bring a little bit of home to them.

I've seen their sacrifice first-hand, at Bethesda and at Walter Reed. At hospitals in theater. I've seen it in their eyes when we talk about their kids as we eat dinner in a DFAC half a world away.

I've seen it in the face of Bill Herried up in Bemidji, who lost his son, Patrick, to an IED north of Baghdad.

I've heard it in the voices of Nancy and Claremont Anderson, who lost their son, Stuart, in a helicopter crash near Tal Afar.

I'm running to represent Minnesota in the United States Senate so I can fight to honor that sacrifice. The promises we make to those who serve us in uniform are not optional – they are part of the covenant that keeps our country strong and free. And the benefits we provide are not given to veterans – they are earned, earned with bravery and skill, with blood and sacrifice. That's something that's been forgotten in Washington.

It's no secret that I'm no fan of this administration – not to mention those in Congress who have supported and enabled it. But I want to speak today not as a partisan, but as an American.

Americans know that our men and women in uniform have been asked to do too much with too little – to complete an impossible mission with insufficient resources. Our military is stretched dangerously thin. War is not cheap, and we shouldn't try to win wars on the cheap.

But no matter what you think of our foreign policy, to cut veterans' health care – to cut funding for the VA, to cut funding for mental health care, to cut funding for research into traumatic brain injuries, the signature wound of this war, to allow Walter Reed Hospital to fall into decay and disrepair – that is a failure of our responsibility to those who took responsibility for us.

When I'm in the United States Senate, I won't forget what our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen have done, and I won't forget what they've earned. And I will fight every day to make sure we honor our commitment to them.

When I'm in the United States Senate, I will stand up and demand that we do better.

Fortunately, the new Congress has taken steps in the right direction, providing the funding our veterans need for this fiscal year. But that funding shouldn't rely on whether Congress steps up to the plate in every given year. I will fight to make sure that we fully fund the VA budget in 2009, in 2010, in 2011, each and every year, so that every veteran can have quality mental, physical, and long-term care for life.

Now let me make this clear, so no one misunderstands. I am talking about every veteran – every soldier, every sailor, every Marine, every airman, every Coastguardsman who has served on active duty, and every National Guardsman or reservist who has been activated – every veteran will have quality health care for life. No means tests, so that a "rich" veteran – one who makes over $26,000 – can be denied. If a veteran chooses to be covered outside the VA under some other plan, that's fine. But any veteran who wants health care through the VA gets it. Period.

As it stands now, nearly 2 million veterans in this country don't have health insurance. Two million veterans who put their lives on the line for us, two million veterans we're letting down, and the number is rising every year. This is wrong, and when I get to the United States Senate, we're going to change it.

If you want to save money in the federal budget, we can make a list of pork-barrel projects, corporate giveaways, and, yes, wasteful military spending – a list a mile long. But when I get to Washington, I'll be the voice shouting, "Keep your hands off the VA budget."

But it's not enough to just fund the VA system. I'll work to cut red tape so that every man and woman in uniform has an electronic medical record that can be moved from the Defense Department to the VA at the touch of a computer key.

You know, when I was in Bagram, Afghanistan, I met some National Guard troops from Minnesota who had the job of clearing and navigating mine-fields left by the Russians.

They shouldn't have to navigate this bureaucracy we've got now when they come home. When you come home, if you want care at a VA hospital, you ought to get it, and you ought to get it right away. And it ought to be as simple as that.

And we can do more – we have to do more – to help our veterans re-integrate into their communities when they come home.

Sometimes it's easy to see where we're falling short. There was a study released just this week saying that veterans make up one out of every four homeless people on any given night. One out of four. That is a tragedy. That should not happen in this country. We need to take action – everything from increased housing vouchers to expanded job training programs.

But sometimes it's harder to see where we're falling short. The statistics are unbelievable: as many as one in five veterans suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. One in three combat-wounded vets suffers from some form of Traumatic Brain Injury. And the suicide rate for veterans is many times higher than it is for the general population.

We need more and better screenings; more and better trained professionals at the VA; more and better tracking so that if problems arise years later, they can be taken care of. We can't let veterans slip through the cracks. We can't leave a single one behind. We can't be finding out that someone needs help only when they end up in rehab, or on the street, or in jail. And we need to fund research so that we can better prevent, diagnose, and treat PTSD and TBI.

When I get to the Senate, I'll support a new G.I. Bill, one that builds upon the promise we made after World War II. Sixty years ago, we opened the doors to education for millions, creating a vast middle-class and powering an economic boom that lasted for decades. It's time to overhaul a G.I. Bill that makes today's vets pay thousands out of their own pockets. I will work to expand it to cover 100% of a public college education, to cap student loan rates for vets, and to make it easier for those who halted their educations in order to serve to pick up where they left off.

There's a bill in the Senate right now that would renew that commitment for those who have served since 9/11.

It's co-sponsored by Democrats like Jim Webb from Virginia and Dick Durbin from Illinois – as well as Republicans like Chuck Hagel from Nebraska, and Olympia Snowe from Maine. I'll be proud to add my name to that list.

We also have to respect and honor the sacrifice made by military families. The first time I went to Iraq, Franni was pretty freaked out. She said, "You don't see Bill O'Reilly going on a USO tour to Iraq." I said, "Honey, that's not fair – he has no talent."

But I had a pretty reliable escort – the Sergeant Major of the Army. And I was only going for two weeks. Franni didn't have to worry about when or if I'd be coming home. (Although she did.) But she didn't have to worry about losing the family's income, or the kids' health insurance. Franni and I can't even imagine what it's like to have a loved one serving in Iraq right now.

We have to raise military pay and benefits so that those who lend us their loved ones in the service of our national security don't lose their economic security. And we should give families of mobilized Guard members and reservists access to military health care, so their spouses and kids never have to go without coverage.

We each owe something to the men and women who protect us, who defend us, who lay their lives on the line for us. We owe them our respect. We owe them our gratitude. And we owe it to them to live up to our end of the bargain.

Paul Wellstone served on the Committee on Veterans Affairs in the Senate, and I want to do the same. It's not one of those committees where you get a lot of PAC contributions. But serving on that committee meant a lot to him. And it would mean a lot to me to be able to fight for the young men and women who fight for us every day. And for the men and women who came before them.

I promise never to forget their courage and sacrifice. I promise to stand up and demand that they receive the benefits they've earned. And I promise to honor the commitment they've made to us, the commitment every American should honor – on Veterans' Day, and every day.

Thank you.