Ready or Not, Here It Comes: Navigating Congress and Caring for the Wounded and Their Family Members During War Time

Abstract

Just prior to the outbreak of the War on Terror, the Department of Defense was focused on the somewhat, mundane aspects of managing the world’s largest military. Issues of importance to military families such as improving child care, upgrading housing, and bettering schools were front and center. Unfortunately, there was little impetus to consider roles and responsibilities for the injured and their families during war time and beyond.

There has always been an assumption in the minds of Members of Congress that the Department of Veterans Affairs existed to provide care and services to the wounded and their family members. However, little time was spent in Congress, leading up to the war (and even many years after it started), considering whether VA was ready to assume those responsibilities, what service member and family expectations were of their respective branch of the military, when did the responsibility of the military to care for the wounded end, and what would be in place at VA to pick up the mantle to provide those services.

During this time, the author served as a senior staff member for the standing committee of the United States Senate with jurisdictional oversight of the policies and operations under which the Department of Veterans Affairs operated. This chapter provides examples of the impact of those failures of consideration and makes recommendations for how to improve on that before, during, and after a future conflict.