Tim Walz's DC roommate, Pennsylvania Representative Patrick Murphy, was a guest on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" on March 8; the focus was on Murphy's experience as a former soldier who had just been to Iraq:
Freshman Congressman Patrick Murphy has been on the job just two months, yet he's just back from a trip to Iraq to visit U.S. troops. It was a homecoming of sorts. Back in 2003-04 the Pennsylvania Democrat was a captain in the 82nd Airborne Division based in Baghdad. He's the only Iraq war veteran in Congress and a vocal opponent of President Bush's troop build up.
A question came in:
CONAN: All right. Find the right button, there we go. All right, we're talking with Congressman Patrick Murphy, the only Iraq war veteran currently serving in Congress. I should point also, at the age of 33, the youngest member of Congress. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
And let's see if we can get another caller on the line, and this is John(ph), John's with us from Salt Lake City.
JOHN (Caller): How are you doing?
CONAN: Very well, thanks.
JOHN: Good. In the past, the rules for deployments of National Guard required that National Guard soldiers not be deployed more than two years out of a five year period. Now, that was recently changed by Congress so that everybody's National Guard clock has been reset.
Anybody, regardless of how many times they've deployed, can now be called up again.
CONAN: Right.
JOHN: So as a National Guard soldier who's been over there twice already, two years since the war began, I'm a little disappointed to find out that my part- time job could jump up on me again.
CONAN: Yeah, the rules are being changed after you signed up.
JOHN: Exactly.
CONAN: Is that fair, Congressman Murphy?
Rep. MURPHY: I think that's absolutely [not] fair. John, you and I, you know, obviously served in the same military, same - we're both proud of our service. It's as if you're doing a physical training fitness test, and you're supposed to run two miles, and then you're getting to the two-mile marker, and they say now you need to run another mile, another three or four miles. And to say it's disheartening to you and to the families back home is really - it's crippling.
And John, I would like to mention my roommate here in Washington - I, you know, I live in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, but I have a very, very small apartment here in Washington with a guy, Tim Walz, Congressman Tim Walz from the state of Minnesota. He was a command sergeant major in the Minnesota National Guard. And just yesterday, John, you wouldn't believe that a unit out of the Minnesota National Guard, who just came back from Iraq, got order[s] and said you are now going to Kosovo.
And not only were they going to Kosovo, but they're going to Kosovo and now not getting the combat, the deployment pay, that everyone else gets. And you look at what the State Department is doing, the State Department has people in Kosovo, they give combat pay, and they don't even give our own soldiers now combat pay. You know, it's kind of doing it on the cheap.
Now, I came down here to Congress to make sure that we're protecting troops, to make sure that we're doing everything possible to support the troops and being smart about things. And what's not being smart about it is saying to some private in the Minnesota National Guard: Thanks for your service in Iraq. You're [now] going to Kosovo, and even though you're only making $19,000 a year, and when you get deployed you get at least tax-free benefits - now we're going to tax your pay, you know, probably a third, where you're going to make now about $14,000 a year, serving in a place like Kosovo where you can't walk on the grass because there are still mines - but our military will say it's not a combat to where it's not really a deployment anymore.
That's what's wrong with the current policies that are in effect right now. And guys like Tim Walz and myself will go to the mat for every single soldier, whether they're active duty, National Guard or reservists - every single day when we're down here.
CONAN: John, thanks very much for the call. Good luck to you.
JOHN: Thank you.
Source: Nexis News Transcripts.
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