Take some time to watch the video. It isn’t very often you’ll see one commissioned by the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. This one will make you cry with frustration.

It is no big secret in the military. The force is worn down to nubs by a decade of war, the last two of which have been waged under the management of an administration fundamentally hostile to the Armed Services.

The fact is Obama is only comfortable cutting one sector of the budget: Defense. This is not to say that Defense is without waste, fraud, and abuse but it isn’t destroying jobs and the economy like Health and Human Services, EPA, and Labor. Right now cuts in defense are projected to total a half trillion dollars. Under Secretary Gates $178 billion, earmarked to support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, was given up to support budget reductions.

Chairman Buck McKeon is going to hold a series of hearings over the next three weeks, around the anniversary of 9/11. Tomorrow the theme will be
The Future of National Defense and the U.S. Military Ten Years After 9/11.

No part of the budget should be sacrosanct but neither should we send young men and women in to combat without the best equipment and support the nation can offer.