that began in 2009. i think part of the push back. they are reluctant to label the shooting as a terrorist attack in the department and government itself. they are looking into manning s case and he did get some back pay and needs the combat desination and it will affect his retirement pay and medical benefits going forward, arthel. thank you, catherine. nato is flexing military might. take a look. the alliance is conducting military exercises, biggest in more than a decade. they are sending a message to russia and dramatic new surveillance footage shows
we re contracting our military. we re in preworld war ii forces. now is not the time to lower the standards. we have a smaller force which demands a greater amount of responsibility. i think we need to do the opposite. we need to raise the bar because we have a smaller force. let s take a look at some of these proposals. changing the age requirements. modernizing retirement pay. recruiting a new cyber space force. allowing midcareer breaks. changing age requirements. and relaxing standards on minor drug offenses. some of it is the cyber is strefting because a different skillset than historical standards. you re not going to be walking down hills and physical demands is not as great. that s interesting. there s room in there. certainly age requirements, i ve seen physicians that are out
he was on a date in a restaurant when he was killed. this morning the iowa democratic party s former communications director is apologizing for this. this insensitive selfie that she took grinning in front of the wreckage. she took this over the weekend. the pentagon making changes to help our heroes. defensive secretary will anndernizing the retirement pay making it more like a 401(k) retirement account. the pentagon will build up a force of 6,000 warfare. troops could ma midcareer breaks and come back right where they left off. a worker at a monster truck show shaking it off to taylor swift. [ laughter ]
benefits that come along with the purple heart. combat pay, health care benefits, tuition waivers and scholarships and some states are offered there. so not only have you been denied an horn and recognition of what you went through, but truly benefits that you more than earned. so this at least, when crew looking at that and the static there is and what will be offered, it has to make you feel a little bit better that congress at least is working on it. absolutely. being that at this point i have a daughter that s graduating from high school this year. and i have another daughter that s in college. so therefore, you just can t do it off retirement pay alone. you can t. and to put your life on the lines for freedom and then to have the people that are in charge of our infrastructure, our government, to treat you the way they re treating you when a lot of them have never even worn a uniform to basically turn their back on you is embarrassing. sure. one quick question before we go,
retirement issue, the budget deal that passed just last year, as soon as it was passed, you had both sides rushing to undo a cut to military retirement pay. these are folks very protected from the budget knife and all the budget conversations. what we re learning is the issues, they re not money issues. you said, the president s claimed and correctly claimed that they ve gotten more resources to v.a. and to the veterans health in particular. but it s not a money issue. it s a matter of organization. it s a matter of basically prioritizing cases and in particular we re seeing potentially some bad actors at the v.a. it s interesting because so much of government agencies does develop around the talk of money. thinking about education, for example. the former head of the congressional budget office even took it a stuff further in saying, you can cover things with money or you can fix the agency, i think they ve done the former. that s a pretty big allegation, isn t it? yeah. but i thi