| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| To all the callers. | ||
| It's a public forum that this country needs. | ||
| And happy Veterans Day to everybody out there. | ||
| I hope I see you out there in real life or online. | ||
|
unidentified
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Today, President Trump joins the 72nd annual National Veterans Day Observance, delivering remarks and laying a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. | |
| Watch live at 11 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN now, our free mobile app, and online at c-span.org. | ||
| Our C-SPAN cameras out at the World War II Memorial. | ||
| Special events going on there later today, and you can see that on C-SPAN as we continue our discussion on veterans issues on this Veterans Day with John Vick. | ||
| He's with Concerned Veterans for America. | ||
| He serves as their executive director. | ||
| Welcome to the program. | ||
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| Appreciate it. | ||
| Before we talk about your organization specifically, outline your military career and how it informs what you do today. | ||
| Yeah, it's been a long and weird one. | ||
| I enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2003, which doesn't feel that long ago. | ||
| Became a field radio operator, put off college for a little bit, ended up serving in Iraq. | ||
| After Iraq, got pretty much bounced directly into the Naval Academy system, ended up commissioning as a Navy officer, and that coincided with the 2011 budget sequestration and a big reduction in force. | ||
| So I was going to go fly planes, ended up never getting to even sit in a Cessna, ended up moving up to Washington, D.C. I'm still in the Navy Reserve now as an intelligence officer, but that's how I ended up in D.C. working for the House Veterans Affairs Committee and 10 years later doing this. | ||
| Politically, because your organization does deal with politics, what do you think is of most importance to veterans these days? | ||
| And particularly with the shutdown going on? | ||
| Well, I say first, for a day like Veterans Day, reach out to the veterans that you know. | ||
| If you're a veteran, reach out to your friends. | ||
| If you know a veteran, reach out. | ||
| Not everybody has the same support system, so I think that's really, really critical. | ||
| I think too, especially given the shutdown and sort of the politics of chaos, I think it's important to take a day like today and view veterans, view the military as something that we can unify around. | ||
| Elaborate on that. | ||
| Yeah, so regardless of your politics, regardless of your background, right, veterans are united, bound by service and fraternity. | ||
| So I think that focusing on that on a day like today helps us maybe put some of the bitterness of politics aside. | ||
| Given the organization that you're with, how do you think the shutdown has treated veterans, particularly with the aspect of pay or the question there, with the aspect of service at the VA? | ||
| How do you think that has been covered during this past 40 days or so? | ||
| Well, so, you know, some things, fortunately, were not impacted by the shutdown, like disability payments, things like that. | ||
| But the VA is enormous. | ||
| It's a leviathan organization, and stuff just breaks all the time, right? | ||
| One of the examples that a friend of mine told me about was related to receiving GI Bill benefits for school. | ||
| The housing allowance that comes with that that enables you to live, you know, in that college town. | ||
| There was some glitch. | ||
| They didn't get their payments, and the people that would solve the glitch were furloughed by the shutdown. | ||
| So even when the resources are technically there, when you have this enormous bureaucratic entity, going two, three, four weeks without having everybody on board working manifests itself in a lot of different ways. | ||
| Do you think with the shutdown seemingly resolving itself, what's your hope as far as veterans are concerned when it comes to how they've been affected? | ||
| Well, foremost, you know, if whoever was impacted by a glitch here or there or missed a payment or missed counseling, right? | ||
| Making sure that we backtrack and take care of those folks that were impacted in any number of ways. | ||
| Talk about your organization. | ||
| Specifically, what is it designed for? | ||
| What does it do? | ||
| Yeah, so CVA, Concerned Veterans for America, very unique. | ||
| We're the only national grassroots organization that is custom-built to amplify veterans' voices across every aspect of American governance. | ||
| So we're not a VSO like VFW or the American Legion. | ||
| And a VSO is. | ||
| A veteran service organization. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So, and specifically, we're Concerned Veterans for America because we talk about everything, right? | ||
| So whenever I'm talking to a group of vets or a group of legislators, I always say, I never went overseas to fight for like a disability benefit or a veteran benefit. | ||
| You go overseas, you join the military to fight for the American way of life. | ||
| You care about your country. | ||
| And so when veterans come home from their service, they quite literally have skin in the game. | ||
| They've sacrificed. | ||
| Their family have sacrificed. | ||
| So whether it's veterans issues or the economy or foreign policy, we believe that veterans have a unique and compelling voice on all issues that matter to all Americans. | ||
| Your organization used to be headed by Pete Hegseth. | ||
| True, yes. | ||
| Do you have sway with him now or at least at the DOD because of your affiliation? | ||
| No, no, absolutely not. | ||
| But he's welcome to call me anytime. | ||
| When it comes to point of view, political point of view, what political point of view would your organization take? | ||
| I'd say we're center-right. | ||
| We're generally conservative, especially on things like economic issues, foreign policy. | ||
| We're very focused on things like realism and restraint in the way that we conduct American policy overseas, the way that we use our military. | ||
| We believe very strongly in, and it's, you know, I think people get it even if you're not a veteran, even if you're not in the military, but like, what's your favorite kind of mission? | ||
| It's one where there's a clear end state, a clear objective, you know what you need to do, you want to go do it, you want to be successful, and then you want to come home. | ||
| So very much trying to, you know, especially those of us that fought in Iraq, deployed to Afghanistan or Africa. | ||
| I've been to Africa twice too. | ||
| You know, it's very demoralizing to not know what your in-state is on that mission, to have open-ended obligations overseas. | ||
| So the crux of when we talk about things like realism and restraint and how we use our military, focusing on it as one lever of national power, right? | ||
| We should be great at diplomacy too, or informational, or military, of course, and then economic. | ||
| And in the war college, we call this dime, DIME. | ||
| And so if you're the greatest, most powerful country in the world, you should be able to leverage your economy, leverage your diplomacy, and then, of course, your military also when you have to, but not going to the most immediate point and shoot option. | ||
| This is John Vick of Concerned Veterans for America joining us. | ||
| And if you have questions for him on this Veterans Day on veterans issues, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, Republicans, 202-748-8001 and Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| And if you are a veteran, active, or former military, and you want to give us your thoughts too, you can call us at 202-748-8003. | ||
| To that last point, John Vick, there is a current debate on Capitol Hill and elsewhere about efforts in the Caribbean dealing with specific ships suspect of narcoterrorism, exploding them, blowing them up. | ||
| What do you think about that overall as a mission? | ||
| And does it fall into your concerns that you just listed? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, I mean, foremost, I think that it's important. | ||
|
unidentified
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We're leaving this here to continue our coverage on this Veterans Day as we take you live now to Arlington National Cemetery for the annual ceremony to honor veterans. | |
| President Trump is expected to speak. |