1. United States
2. Va.
3. Letter

I am a constituent, a veteran, and someone who has watched your record because you’ve presented yourself as someone who understands the actual cost of these decisions. I am writing because that cost is no longer theoretical, and I need to know where you stand — not eventually, now. On July 21, Secretary Hegseth told the Senate Appropriations Committee the Iran war has cost $37.5 billion. Seventeen American service members are dead. Over 100 are wounded, and that figure doesn’t touch the ones who will carry invisible injuries — traumatic brain injuries, PTSD, moral injury — for the rest of their lives. The administration is now asking for tens of billions more, with no defined objective, no exit strategy, and without having spent half of the $150 billion it already received. Not one person responsible for this has faced any consequence. Not the Secretary. Not the administration. The only people facing consequences are the service members and their families, in your district, right now. I am asking you directly, and I expect a direct answer, not a form letter: • Will you vote to force a War Powers Resolution authorization vote before any additional war funding is approved — yes or no? • Will you vote to block supplemental funding until the Department fully accounts for the $150 billion it already has and provides a defined strategy — yes or no? • Will you support a formal inquiry into Secretary Hegseth’s fitness to hold this office, given his failure to manage this conflict competently or account for its cost — yes or no? You represent one of the highest concentrations of active-duty military and veteran families in the country. Their sons and daughters are the ones absorbing this war’s cost while the people who ordered it face no accountability at all. That imbalance is the actual scandal here, and it is one you have direct power to correct with your vote. I will be watching exactly how you vote on this, and I will be talking about it with other veterans and military families in this district between now and the midterms. Silence or a vague non-answer will be read as an answer.