Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), the country's first and largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, released the following statement in response to the shootings in Tucson, Arizona:

"The attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is a national tragedy. The thoughts and prayers of IAVA Member Veterans nationwide are with Congresswoman Giffords, her family and all of the victims of this terrible attack.

Congresswoman Giffords has been a strong advocate for veterans and their families in Arizona and across the country. She represents nearly 100,000 veterans in her district, and we are grateful for her dedicated leadership and commitment to our community. This past year, Giffords authored six critical bills addressing veterans’ transition home, mental health, housing for military families and upgrades to the Post-9/11 GI Bill. Recently, Congresswoman Giffords introduced two key bills to fund scholarships for mental health professionals serving at Vet Centers and expand DoD/VA grants for nonprofits supporting active duty service members and their families.

We join all Americans in mourning on this solemn day and keep all of the victims and their families in our thoughts and prayers."

Rhee, 49, chief of trauma at University Medical Center in Tucson, said his work in the Navy tending to injured soldiers and Marines and teaching the next generation of battlefield medical personnel unquestionably played a role in his ability to treat Giffords and direct care for the 10 other victims who began arriving in his unit Saturday morning.

"There's no doubt," he said. "I was in the Navy 24 years, and I trained to do nothing but battlefield casualty care. When I did go to Afghanistan and Iraq, I wasn't in a hospital. I was in very forward surgical units, so I was very accustomed to working with very little gear and people and personnel, very little resources, with wounds that are very different than civilian injuries," Rhee said Sunday. "Did it prepare me? I would say of course it did. And that makes it so that when we have a mass casualty of 11 people here, it's really not as bad as it can get."

Rhee said he handled "hundreds and hundreds" of battlefield injuries in two war deployments beginning in 2001. He was one of the first battlefield surgeons to be deployed to Camp Rhino, the first U.S. land base in Afghanistan, located in the remote desert about 100 miles southwest of Kandahar. In 2005, he served in Iraq.

"This doesn't compare," he said of his university hospital environs. "This is not really a mass casualty. I have all the gear and people I could possibly want. This is luxury for me. This trauma center, this is about as good as it gets."

The new Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s military personnel panel says he will hold hearings to look at the Pentagon’s plans allow openly gay people to serve, and he will look for chances to reinstate the ban lifted by Congress in December.

Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., who became the personnel subcommittee chairman on Wednesday when the 112th Congress convened, said it was “irresponsible” for Congress to repeal the ban on openly gay service members without giving the House of Representatives time to hold hearings into what is involved in changing the law and how the change might effect current and future service members.

Wilson said he wants the service chiefs to testify before the armed services committee about how they plan to repeal the ban. Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the full armed services committee, said battlefield commanders, down to the battalion level, might be called to testify about whether lifting the ban will hurt morale and readiness.

Wilson said he personally believes that lifting the ban “will hurt unit cohesion” and that he “would support the repeal of the repeal” if House Republican leaders take on that fight.

Reversing course would be difficult. There might be enough votes in the Republican-controlled House to reinstate the ban, but the Senate remains under Democratic control.