Senator Johnny Isakson is the Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and his office issued the following:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FRIDAY, MAY 22, 2015
Contact: Amanda Maddox 202-224-7777
Isakson Talks Veterans’ Issues on C-SPAN Newsmakers
“We owe our veterans everything. However we’re going to deliver it, we’ve got to deliver it.”
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, will be featured on
C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” this Sunday, May 24, 2015, at 10:00 a.m. ET and 6:00 p.m. ET.
In
honor of the upcoming Memorial Day holiday, Senator Isakson will discuss
the importance of taking care of our veterans after they’ve risked
their lives for the sake of our country. He also talks
about the importance of veterans’ health care and reforming the culture
of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) so that tragedies like last
year’s wait time scandal at the VA hospital in Phoenix never happen
again.
“We can’t shortchange somebody who risked their life for you and I,”
says Isakson in the interview.
“We need to make sure [veterans]
get the benefits we pass and promise them. We also need to make sure we
can deliver the benefits that we promise in the future… There should
never be an equivocation over giving a veteran the services they have
earned, they
fought for and they risked their life for.”
In
the interview, Isakson discusses the importance of serving all veterans –
World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and everyone in
between – while reflecting on his formative years during
the Vietnam War Era.
“I’m
a product of the Vietnam Era… and I lost some of my best friends in
Vietnam. I remember the sacrifice and the tragedy our country went
through,”
Isakson continues.
“We need to make sure in the
latter years of their life, they’re getting the care they deserve… We
owe those veterans just as equally as we owe the Afghan and Iraqi
veterans and the World War II veterans and I’m going to see to it that
they get it.”
“We owe our veterans everything. However we’re going to deliver it, we’ve got to deliver it.”
You can watch Senator Isakson’s interview online now,
or live on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” on Sunday, May 21, 2015, at 10:00 a.m. ET and 6:00 p.m. ET.
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The Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs is chaired by U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., in the 114th Congress.
Isakson
is a veteran himself – having served in the Georgia Air National Guard
from 1966-1972 – and has been a member of the Senate VA Committee since
he joined the Senate in 2005. Isakson’s home
state of Georgia is home to more than a dozen military installations
representing each branch of the military as well as more than 750,000
veterans.
veterans
