{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=B9A32FDA-1DD9-4367-8B86-8A0EEC728FB4", "Moyers & Company: How Furloughs Hurt the Most Vulnerable Soldiers", "2013-09-11", "2013", "2013-09", "Independent", "House", "VT", "Bernard Sanders", "S000033", "sanders.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "How Furloughs Hurt the Most Vulnerable Soldiers\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t By:\u00a0 Greg Kaufmann \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\tWednesday, September 11, 2013\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\tMatthew Hoh, a former Marine Corps company commander in Anbar Province who later redeployed to Afghanistan with the State Department and resigned his post in protest over U.S. policy, believes that nothing has laid bare the\u00a0priorities\u00a0of our nation so clearly as the sequester.\r\n\u201cThe most vulnerable are getting hurt, while the privileged, the well-to-do are being protected,\u201d says Hoh, now a senior\u00a0fellow at the\u00a0Center for International Policy. \u201cWe\u2019re choosing to prioritize profits of corporations, or revitalize weapons systems that don\u2019t matter any more, as opposed to making sure soldiers get the care they need when they come home.\u201d\r\nHoh points to the fact that Department of Defense civilian health care workers were forced to reduce their hours by 20 percent until recently. While Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel\u00a0reduced\u00a0the furlough days required for the remainder of the fiscal year ending September 30, he also said that he \u201ccannot be sure what will happen\u201d under sequestration for Fiscal Year 2014 which begins October 1. The Pentagon will be required to cut 40 percent more than the $37 billion that was mandated this year.\r\nTo Hoh, the reduction in furlough days comes much too late and the damage has already been done.\r\n\u201cWe\u2019ve got a suicide epidemic with record numbers of suicides among military personnel every year,\u201d says Hoh. \u201cGuys coming home with PTSD and depression, and then the clinicians working with them were only available four days a week instead of five.\u201d\r\nIndeed,\u00a0Stars and Stripes\u00a0recently\u00a0reported\u00a0that Walter Reed National Medical Center had reduced beds in the in-patient mental health section from 28 to 22; an internal memo encouraged \u201cdispositions/discharges as soon as possible\u201d and the western Army medical region alone had delayed 10,000 routine patient appointments in the first month of furloughs due to staffing shortages.\r\nContinue reading here.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=B9A32FDA-1DD9-4367-8B86-8A0EEC728FB4"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7481100037693977, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}