Hearing of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee - Medical Care for Federal Civilians Deployed to Combat

Interview

Hearing of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee - Medical Care for Federal Civilians Deployed to Combat

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REP. PHIL GINGREY (R-GA): Mr. Chairman, thank you. I didn't hear all of the witnesses testify. I came in a little bit late, but Ambassador Thomas, I wanted maybe to direct my question to you. This idea of a civilian volunteer corps -- and I think you referenced maybe comments that the President made in the State of the Union in regard to volunteerism in general and what people should, could, would do to serve their country in ways other than serving in the military as an example, and I thought that was a good idea. I just wonder where we are in regard to that.

You may have in your written and oral testimony -- may have already spoken to it, but I missed that, and I'm curious to know what we've done and how that would work. I think it's intriguing as an example, as Dr. Snyder just references our prior life -- the two of us -- positions. Would you go after medical personnel and maybe a family doc, you know, who might want to step forward, and are there any definitive plans to do that to bring people in and once they make applications say that -- you know, draft them forward and train them? So if you could elaborate on that a little bit more -- I think that's a very intriguing concept.

MR. THOMAS: Thank you very much, congressman. Ambassador John Herbst -- the Stabilization and Reconstruction Office under which we have the Active Response Corps and the Civilian Response --

REP. GINGREY: Would you pull that microphone a little bit closer there? Yes.

MR. THOMAS: I'm sorry.

REP.: That's fine.

MR. THOMAS: Ambassador John Herbst leads the Office of Stabilization and Reconstruction under which we have the Active Response Corps. Once the President's State of the Union -- this is before Congress to enact legislation. Fourth, it will allow us to fully realize this proposal. And it's extremely important, as my colleague, Mr. Ward, said -- the first group of people would be from the interagency -- the interagency. These are people who already work for the government who have expertise who would go in for the short time the way our USAID (dark ?) team -- the second group, however, would be the Civilian Reserve Corps where we look for -- to train people who are doctors, lawyers, veterinarians, whomever, who might be able to respond to a crisis to support their country, be it in Iraq, Afghanistan, or another crisis place that we cannot foresee today.

But the important thing is to have these people ready so that we can respond and help people. And why we want to do it through one organization is because people have to have medical clearance. They need to learn languages. They have to have security clearances, need the same training, need to have team building.

REP. GINGREY: In what organization would that be?

MR. THOMAS: The State Department, sir.

REP. GINGREY: Department of State, yeah.

MR. THOMAS: Yes, sir. And we believe we're ready, and again, we're asking that Congress enact that legislation.

REP. GINGREY: Great. Well, I think that sounds good. I've got a little bit of time left, and I want to propose this question either to Mr. Ward or Mr. Miller or any of the panelists in regard to people who had served on Provincial Reconstruction Teams as they come back. I'm assuming that you debriefed them and learned best practices so that you can -- the next cadre that moves forward into the field, that deploys -- that they'll be able to do an even better job than the ones that have already served in that capacity.

And I wanted to ask you -- how do the folks that are coming back after a year or a year and a half or two years in a very difficult, exciting assignment -- how do they fit back into their regular job structure? Is it working well, or is there a little bit of struggle getting them back into the routine of things when they come home?

MR. WARD: Well, maybe I'll start. As I said -- you weren't here. I brought four veterans and the PRTs with me this afternoon, and these are four officers that are now working in the Asia Near East Bureau at USAID. And I'd say they fit in pretty well. But some have now taken other Foreign Service assignments overseas. Others are working for USAID in Washington. Others have gone back into the private sector, or if we borrowed them on a detail from another U.S. government agency, they may have gone back to their agency.

One thing I'm very proud of that has happened in the few years now of experience that we have is -- you asked do we debrief them? We not only debrief them, we charge them with training the next crowd going out. We really tap their expertise as best we can because they truly are the pioneers, and I think all credit for progress that we've made in improving the effectiveness of the PRTs goes to them, because these brave men and women have really written the book. They've written the doctrine on what works and what doesn't work.

And I'm certain that if Deputy Secretary England was sitting here with us today he would agree that the level of cooperation between the civilian advisors and the PRT commanders -- certainly in Afghanistan, and we're getting better and better all the time in Iraq -- we've had a little less experience with this -- is very much a function of people seeing a common goal and deciding -- let's put our glossaries behind us, let's learn each other's terminology, and let's focus on what it is we're trying to do for the Afghan people or the Iraqi people and let's get it done. And I think everybody's very proud of how far we've come with that.

And I hope I don't sound like I'm sugar coating it, because, yeah, we could do better. We could do better training before they go. We could do better in terms of doctrine and making resources available. But I have seen so much progress in that in the last four years that I wanted to share that with you.

REP. GINGREY: Thank you, Mr. Ward. Mr. Chairman, I don't know if Mr. Miller wanted to make a comment, but I see my time is expired. If we --

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