mr. speaker , in regards to what the gentleman from wisconsin ( mr. obey ) xz4003000 just said , i am surprised at the new chairman . 
he is so lenient about getting time out of him . 
usually our bill moves much faster than this . 
i thought he learned . 
let me say the defense part of this and maybe the rest of it is probably the most bipartisan bill one could ever find . 
the gentleman from florida ( chairman young ) , the gentleman from california ( chairman lewis ) , and i have been traveling to these various bases . 
we found shortages every place we went , all kinds of problems that they brought to our attention that needed to be rectified . 
we found problems so severe that many of the units that were on their way to iraq were c-4 . 
the gentleman from california ( mr. cunningham ) xz4000910 , my good friend , the hero from vietnam , knows what i am talking about when i say c-4 . 
i am talking about they are not ready to go to combat because the equipment is so bad . 
as a matter of fact , the equipment was so bad at one base , and i think it was fort stewart where the troops did not have radios to train with , did not have small arms ammunition , did not have mortar ammunition to train with , and that means that when they get there , they are not at the cutting edge of where they should be . 
now they get equipment when they get there , and that overcomes the c-4 . 
so the gentleman from florida ( chairman young ) and i , what we did was put $ 2.3 billion into the budget . 
we first checked , the staff checked , with the army to make sure that that is where it ought to be put . 
the army came back and supported us . 
usually , they beat around the bush . 
the gentleman from california ( chairman lewis ) knows what i mean . 
we talk to them , and because of other people over there , they do not want to admit that they need the money . 
this time they were very emphatic that they needed every cent and they needed it as soon as they could get it . 
so we added money for the types of things that they need . 
having said that , what i have said to the services because we are having such a problem , we see the recruiting problem , we are looking into that right now . 
the subcommittee i serve on , we realize and we have said for a long time , they are going to have a recruiting problem as this war gets unpopular ; and we were trying to figure out how do we overcome that . 
most times i disagree with those bonuses because i feel so strongly that people ought to join the armed forces for the good of the country , but we have to give bonuses to send them over there . 
we put money in for those kinds of things . 
we increased the amount of money somebody gets when they are killed in action . 
we expanded it so that when they are killed in action , they are taken care of retroactively as well as prospectively . 
we take care of somebody who is wounded . 
we added money to it . 
some veterans group called me and said they were not happy with the way we added that money . 
they felt like there ought to be more study , and i can not disagree with that . 
but when the four of us sat down , the gentleman from florida ( chairman young ) and senator inouye and senator stevens , we came to the conclusion that we just did not think we could wait . 
so we put money in to take care of people who were injured so severely as well as the ones that were killed . 
and i got so many letters from the people at home , and i have had 12 killed in my district , how pleased they were about what we are doing because it helped them get through a very difficult time . 
what we have tried to do over the years is make sure that the people that were in the armed forces had what they needed , that the people in iraq have what they need . 
our subcommittee brought to the attention of the country that they were without a lot of equipment in iraq . 
we are working right now . 
new trucks , we are trying to figure out how to put new trucks in that are encapsulated because we have taken care of the humvees , but we need to take care of the trucks now . 
so we got some commercial trucks which were recommended which were $ 100 , 000 less , but it was so late , we could not get it in the bill . 
we are going to ask for reprogramming for that amount of money . 
so this bill is taking care of equipment shortages , not all of them , but it is taking care of as many as we could possibly squeeze in . 
it is taking care of reset . 
we forced the military to ask for reset . 
the minute that this war is over and the money starts to dry up , reset will be the first thing they do not do ; so we have to do it now . 
and i have said to many of the industrial leaders in this country , the minute the war is over , there will not be any supplementals , there will be a lot less money to be spent , and we have got to spend this money now in the supplementals to make sure that that gets done . 
armor modularity , there is some argument about that ; but we think it ought to be done , and we have pushed this . 
many of the programs that the army has today have come about because of the defense subcommittee , chaired by the gentleman from california ( mr. lewis ) xz4002391 and chaired by the gentleman from florida ( mr. young ) xz4004391 . 
many of the things that have happened have happened because we see it out in the field . 
we go out in the field , talk to the people , make sure that we are doing the right thing , and then we try to send defense in the right direction . 
so i urge the members to vote for this . 
the troops need it , and it helps dramatically for the amount of money that is needed by the armed forces . 
