By today, Pentagon officials intent on raising health care fees and co-payments for military retirees should realize they are in for a major and probably unwinnable fight. Reps. Chet Edwards (D-Tex.), House Appropriations Committee, and Walter B. Jones Jr. (R-N.C.), House Armed Services Committee, who on March 15 unveiled legislation to block the increases, also are out to strip DOD of any power to tamper with the program. Jones had a warning for the Bush administration: “They had better get on our side or they are going to get embarrassed.”
Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach said the service must improve its readiness in his first public remarks as Air Force Chief of Staff, made during a ceremony marking his ascension to the service’s top job Nov. 18.
