academy of television arts and sciences and at 90 he s still a consultant. thanks to roddie for saving us. and thank you. god bless america. [ applause ] all i can say is i want to look like these guys when i m 90. i m very honored to call upon american pastor chris edmonds, son of the late master sergeant roddie edmonds, righteous among the nations from the united states of america to receive the medal and certificate of honor on behalf of his father and to offer some remarks. [ applause ] lester, you did good. thank you. ambassador dermer, mr. president, might i say it s an incredible honor to have you here. this is one memory that our family will cherish always. and might also say it s my first time speaking at the embassy as well. [ laughter ] [ applause ] rabbi lau, mr. wiff, senator corker, the gunden family, i m going to mess this up, i m from tennessee. the be say it for me. there we go. i ll get it right next time. and distinguished guests. tonight on this nobl
military. and we make a as you know, our quarterly report is the largest data call that goes out every year to the u.s. government, or every quarter on what s going on. when we ask these questions, we re not getting answers anymore because stick ka, because our resources in the field are not there to answer them. you re on to a very important part that goes beyond the literacy issue. it goes to the heart of the issue and that is do we have adequate resource to understand the capabilities of the andsf. thank you. anyone else want to comment on that? compared to two years ago i think if threat to our personnel who are serving in afghanistan has grown. and i m particularly concerned about our embassies wity and th inability of our personnel to move around the city of kabul or even well or anywhere else. so my first question is, do you think that the danger there has increased, and what if anything can we do to mitigate those concerns? so, since the drawdown of u.s. and c
mr. president, honored guests, it s a great honor for me to be here this evening with all of you. some of you may recognize me from television, but most of you probably recognize my voice and not my face from national public radio. we are assembled here at the embassy of israel in washington, d.c. to award medals and certificates of honor of the righteous among the nations to the late master sergeant roddy edmunds and to the late valerie sveski of poland who risked their lives to rescue jews. the holocaust remembrance authority was created by the state of israel in order to gather all information about the holocaust to commemorate, document, preserve, research and educate. when it was established, the jewish people did not forget the non-jews who stood by their side in it the darkest hours of history, struggling with the enormity of the loss and grappling with the impact of the total abandonment and betrayal of europe s jews, the state of israel made a point of remembering
that they currently exist in, we re just going to have weaker product delivered later. i think we need to have some reform as the next round. and i think there s enormous potential there, not just in the military departments but between the military departments and osd, within osd, and further out into the headquarters in the field. well, i thank you for that. and you are uniquely situated now to play a key role. and i agree with you. just flat-out reductions is just the first step. you have to it s a little bit like sequestration in that it s a meat ax when we need a scalpel and so i would look forward to having you play a role there given your unique background. finally, the source of great frustration this committee, all of us members, is this continued cost overruns on weapons systems. we ve made some reforms. we re putting the service chiefs more involved. you are aware. but it still seems to go on. and every time we really need something, we use that expedited proce