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Testimony by Paul Sullivan, Executive Director, Veterans for Common Sense

Veterans for Common Sense (tiffany key ring on sale) thanks Committee Chairman Filner, Ranking Member Buyer, and Members of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee for inviting us to testify about "The True Cost of War," and the consequences of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. We are honored to be in the company of experts, advocates, and fellow veterans to discuss this important long-term issue.

VCS begins by presenting the Committee with the most salient official tiffany money clip on sale statistics about the human and social costs of the current conflicts. Our top priority for this hearing is to inform Congress, the press, and the American public about the human cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars because everyone in our country is impacted by high taxes, spending, and lost opportunity costs caused by war.

As of March 2010, government statistics show 565,000 new veteran patients were treated at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals and clinics since 2001. As of today, based on an average of 9,000 new patients each month, VCS estimates the current count of VA patients is approximately 619,000.

The significant post-tiffany necklace on sale statistics about our veterans must be contrasted with events during 2002, when the Administration had no casualty estimate, no plan to monitor or estimate fatal or non-fatal casualties, no plan for caring for non-fatal casualties, and no dedicated long-term funding for non-fatal casualties.

The consequences of the war are high, especially for non-fatal casualties. There is a general lack of awareness about the hundreds of thousands of post-deployment casualties. And there appears to be a lack of urgency tiffany necklace on sale adequately and promptly meet our veterans' growing needs. Therefore, VCS urges Congress to pass a new law mandating that the Administration must estimate, monitor, plan, and fund healthcare and disability benefits for our casualties before starting or entering into a war.

VCS broadly defines casualty. This includes battlefield deaths, and caring for our grieving families. Casualty includes our servicemembers who become wounded, injured, or ill on the battlefield as well as during training. This includes post-war medical conditions among our veterans not immediately tiffany ring on sale while in the military, such as toxic exposures, traumatic brain injury, and mental health conditions.

Part One: Official Statistics

Government statistics paint a disturbing picture of enormous human suffering among our servicemembers and veterans. VCS obtained the following facts from the Department of Defen