On capitol hill with lawmakers fielding questions about healthcare and well spend some time talking with veterans only and get your experience with the v. A. System. If you live in the Eastern Central part dial it at 2027488000, 2027488001 or send us a tweet or go to facebook. Com or send an email. Veterans only and the lines are open. Take a look at the numbers. This is from the Veterans Affairs department. These are the number of veterans that get benefits and healthcare through the v. A. System. About 9 million are enrolled in the v. A. Healthcare system and nearly 7 million have a Life Insurance policy administered by the v. A. And four4 million are active and 1 million get education benefits and. 3 million receiving a v. A. Pension and about. 1 v. A. Vocational rehabilitation beneficiaries. That is the different benefits and healthcare that the v. A. Offers. Heres the veteran population about 22 million veterans 9 of those are female. The rest males. Look how it breaks down by war
Contingency over seas in the near future . You would have to do one of two things. You would either have to grow the force. We believe that the force is 186,000 marines. And elsewhere, we could take services that are deployed in the far east and okonawa. We did that in the combat in iraq. And its only through the past few years we have been able to reestablish our presence in the pacific. We have some options. The other option is we go all in. We activate our reserves and we go and do what needs to be done. We have done that before too. You can do that for a short period of time but as you mentioned, that is not sustainable. What is a short period of time . In your best estimate i dont want to hold you to it. But we are wrestling with Big Decisions about the middle east and Irans Nuclear capableility and there are some in the senate that i believe are tempted by the idea that we can go in and bomb iran and set off what could be a war much bigger than any contingency we have been trying
Whether we would based on a standard allow women to serve in infantry artillery tanks light armory reconnaissance, we formed a task force of volunteers. And we put them together as a unit. They trained up and went to 29 palms and the Warfare Center and did a series of tests. And the tests are complete and it will provide information to inform about whether or not he will request the waiver. And i have not seen all the data. I have seen some of it. And when we first sent volunteer female marines inligsed to determine their ability to complete that course. The number that went they had an about a 36 Completion Rate and again, we are still looking at this. We are we have not made any sort of predecision. So again whatever we do, it is about individual standards. It is about the capableeableility of the unit and that unit becoming better, or at least as good as it is now. So that decision is is going to come. I believe we have ainformation, we are working with the army. And im sure i know
That we made. Among the most contentious issues over the past two years involved the armys restructuring initiative. I understand the army has been put in a difficult position by budget reductions and over the past several years has been exploring a number of option to maximize come pat power while at the same time trying to combat costs. Congress has similarly been taking a hard look at this which is why the commission of the structure of the army was established in the ndaa. If confirmed will you comment to thoroughly reviewing the armys Aviation Restructuring Initiative and working closely with congress once the Commission Report is delivered next year to help us figure out the best path forward on Army Structure issues . Absolutely will and i look forward to reviewing the Commission Report. And what do you think are the biggest threats that should you be confirmed youll have to prepare the army to address in the coming decade . I think the armys fundamental mission of engaging in g
The agenda for the most obvious reasons. It is the most populous country in the entire region. For the last four years it has teetered on the brink of political and economic and social collapse. I think it is still in a tenuous phase at this point. And when we talk about adopting or adapting the new silk road concepts to places like egypt there are places where it fits in with the president s attempt to build a second suez canal and to help egypt become a more functional place when it comes to linking parts of the world together. Where i think we may have some differences of views, and we can talk about this is how about the best way for egypt to approach the extremism and terrorism problem. And as we see in the last few weeks, this problem is not only gotten worse, it has actually made things much more difficult in places not only in the signi peninsula but in cairo proper. But this is again not only what type of in collusive Economic Growth we want to try to promote to help the socie