mr. speaker , in regards to what the gentleman from wisconsin ( mr. obey )  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 )  , 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 )  and chaired by the gentleman from florida ( mr. young )  .  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 .  