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The National Guard deserves a stronger voice within the Defense Department, given its role in the war on terror, Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said Monday. Addressing the annual conference of the National Guard Association of the United States, Biden noted that more than half of the veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom are guardsmen and reservists.With citizen soldiers carrying such a burden, Biden said Lt. Gen. Craig McKinley, slated to become the first four-star general to head the National Guard, deserves a seat at the table with the Joint Chiefs of Staff."Tell me why there's any rational reason why you shouldn't have a seat at that table," Biden said, speaking one day after Republican presidential candidate John McCain addressed the group.Maj. Gen. Frank Vavala, adjutant general of Biden's home state of Delaware and president of the Adjutants General Association of the United States, said such recognition, similar to that given the Marine Corps after initial representation by the Navy, is long overdue."It's something that we certainly are advocating as an association," said Vavala, who noted that more than a third of the Army and Air Force consists of National Guard units, and that the Guard numbers almost 500,000 men and women."Our people are fighting the war every day," he said, adding that the notion of Guardsmen as "weekend warriors" no longer applies.Biden's eldest son, Delaware attorney general Beau Biden, is a captain in a National Guard unit that is to report for training next month before being deployed to Iraq."My son, Beau, is proud to wear the uniform and proud to answer the call to serve," the senator said.Biden also said that if he and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama are elected, they will work to ensure that health care funding for veterans, particularly those suffering from traumatic brain injuries, will be a budget priority."It's the only sacred obligation that a nation has," said Biden, a longtime supporter of the National Guard.Biden said the burden of proving that a traumatic brain injury is combat-related should be shifted from the soldier to the government, and that returning veterans who have lost limbs should be guaranteed state-of-the-art prostheses for life.Biden criticized McCain for suggesting a day earlier that Obama's positions on issues facing the country are rooted in his ambition to be president."After the last eight years, the last thing we need now is more politics of division," he said, adding that Obama's judgment, whether it be the need for a timeline to bring troops home from Iraq or the need for more troops in Afghanistan, has proven to more prescient than McCain's.
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wow goldWhen the Department of Defense proposed cutting the National Guard's force strength in 2006, McCain refused to join 75 of his Senate colleagues, including Biden and Obama, in opposing the move, Biden said.He also noted that he and Obama supported a proposal to boost education benefits under a more expansive GI bill, while McCain said the proposal was too generous.
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Biden calls for stronger voice for National Guard
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