Thank you for yielding, Mr. Chairman.

I would first like to thank the members of the first panel for their service to this country, not only for their military service, but their continued service by appearing here today to share their testimony and help us work towards a better transition for our nation’s veterans.

Prior to this hearing, my staff provided me with a list of the hearings held by the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs over the past 10 years.  Totaling around 33 hearings, the topics have ranged from employment transition, through the use of the poly trauma centers, pre and post deployment health assessments, sharing of the electronic health record of our wounded servicemembers, transition assistance programs for guard and reserve forces, and the list goes on.  As you can tell, helping our servicemembers move from military to civilian life is of great importance to this Committee.

Concern in Congress about helping our servicemembers transition to civilian life didn’t start 10 years ago.  During the 97th Congress, Congress codified the concept of “DoD/VA Sharing”, now known as “Seamless Transition” in 1982, with passage of the Veterans Administration and the Department of Defense Health Resources Sharing and Emergency Operations Act (P.L. 97-174).  This Act created the VA-Care Committee to supervise and manage opportunities to share medical resources.

Today’s hearing will enable the Committee to review the various programs that have been instituted to assist our nation’s veterans, and wounded warriors in their transition to civilian life.  We will be looking not only at the medical record exchange between VA and DoD, but also at the various other transition services, the use of the Poly trauma centers across the country, and programs available to assist our veterans.  This is not the first hearing to look at these issues, and I am certain that it will not be our last. 

We here in Congress must do everything we can to make certain that the transition our military personnel undergo is smooth, easy and the programs available are truly helping our nation’s veterans.  In the past, it appears that the transition many servicemembers have encountered have not been exactly seamless and certainly not easy or smooth.

Mr. Chairman I appreciate you holding this hearing today.  I believe we have much to learn from the witnesses hear today. 

Again, thank you Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.