Congress sacrifices for the war effort

A message to preznit, Congress, and the 101st Fighting Keyboardists:

"We have to let people joining know that if they make this sacrifice, we will take care of them," General Gaddis said in a telephone interview from his home in Vienna, Va. "They need to increase medical benefits for both active and reserve and anyone else, because they're not seeing that commitment."

Sgt. Maj. Roger Leturno, who retired in September 2003 after serving as the senior enlisted adviser to General Gaddis and two successors at the recruiting command, said the president's rejection of a timetable for withdrawal would also make it harder for recruiters to persuade young people to join.

"You have a percent of kids out there will join regardless," said Sergeant Major Leturno, who watched the speech at home in Colorado Springs with his 20-year-old daughter, Maggie, a member of the Colorado National Guard. "But that's not the problem."

"A recruiter is trying to get the ones on the fence or on the other side of the fence," he said. "He may have gotten some of the fence-sitters, but I don't think he got the ones on the other side."

Col. David Slotwinski, a former chief of staff for recruiting who retired in 2004 and watched the speech from his home in Olympia, said: "He just did a great rehash of everything that's been said so far.

"The last part of it, where he came out strong and thanked the troops, that was well done. But in the end, there still was not really that call for service. There was no call to arms. He didn't say 'America, I need your sons and daughters to support us in the fight.' "

It's tough enough getting them to commit our tax dollars to support the troops, I'm not holding my breath on the whole sons and daughters thing.

Senator Larry E. Craig, Republican of Idaho and chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee, who is leading the effort, said he had discussed the $1.5 billion with White House officials, who he said had earlier resisted the idea of emergency spending. "They blinked," Mr. Craig said, adding, "The message to veterans is very clear, and it is a strong bipartisan message, that they will be served."

In the House, where Republicans at first said no action was necessary, party leaders were meeting into the evening to figure out how to proceed. A spokesman for Representative Jerry Lewis of California, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said it was possible that an emergency bill could go to the House floor as early as Wednesday.

But earlier in the day, House Republicans voted down an effort by Democrats to increase health spending for veterans by $1 billion. Mr. Lewis and Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader, told reporters in the morning that they did not believe an emergency spending measure was required.

By afternoon, however, with President Bush addressing the nation Tuesday night on the status of the war in Iraq, and rising complaints from veterans and Democrats, it became apparent that Republicans would have to act. Democrats, who have been trying to turn veterans' health care into a winning political issue, were delighted.

"They have seen the light," said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader.

At least Congress did approach an issue far less difficult for them to get behind.