U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan is going to celebrate the Fourth of July at Camp Lejeune.

Hagan, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, will join Marines at the base for holiday festivities Saturday evening.

A release from Hagan's office notes that her father-in-law is a retired two-star Marine general.

U.S. Rep. Walter Jones wants to rename the Navy.

The Farmville Republican is once again pushing to rename the Department of the Navy the Department of the Navy and Marine Corps, the Washington Post reports.

With a district that includes Camp Lejeune, Jones often writes condolence letters to the families of Marines killed in action. He told the Post that he feels it slights their contributions when the letter comes only from the Navy.

"The Navy and Marine Corps always sell themselves before Congress as 'one fighting team,'" he said. “If you're one team, then why isn’t the teams name Navy and Marine Corps?"

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole was very bipartisan in the 2005-06 session.

With the candidates for Senate touting their records of bipartisanship, Dome has been taking a closer look at the number of Democrats who signed on to legislation Dole sponsored.

In the 2005-06 session, the Salisbury Republican was the primary sponsor of 49 bills. Of them, 30 had no cosponsor, nine had only Republican cosponsors and nine had Democratic cosponsors.

Overall, her 63 cosponsors included 29 Democrats and 34 Republicans, or about a one-to-one ratio. (Dome is counting Sen. Jim Jeffords, an Independent, as a Democrat since he caucused with them.)

The most frequent Democratic cosponsor was Sen. Barbara Mikulski, who signed on to four Dole amendments, including a measure to require the National Academy of Sciences study drinking water contamination at Camp Lejeune.

Dole also had Democratic cosponsors on bills requiring a report on predatory lending to military families, assist worker retraining programs, encourage collectively bargained retiree health benefits, honoring a black Marine and giving a tax credit for hunger relief efforts.

Previously: Dole's Democratic cosponsors in 2007-08 session.

JACKSONVILLE – Sen. Hillary Clinton portrayed herself today as the only presidential hopeful who could "responsibly" end the war in Iraq.

Clinton sought to thread a needle between Republican Sen. John McCain's support for continuing U.S. presence and her Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama's more adamant opposition to the war, reports Rob Christensen.

Clinton said that if she is elected president, she would meet with military leaders to devise a withdrawal plan. She said the U.S. had already provided the Iraqis “the gift of freedom.”

“They will no longer have a blank check from the president of the United States,” Clinton told about 2,000 people who gathered this morning in front of a fire house in this military town near the Camp Lejeune Marine base.

Clinton also promised that her administration would provide more attention to the needs of veterans, and would work to make sure that troops are not overstretched.

Read more after the jump.

   Comments (14)

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole is trying to force military officials to inform hundreds of thousands of Marine families and workers that they drank and washed in toxin-contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, The Associated Press is reporting.

Dole wants to force the secretary of the Navy to locate and notify Marines and civilians who were exposed to the water up until the mid-1980s when the base shut down contaminated wells.

The notification requirement was in an amendment she offered Wednesday to a broad military money bill before the legislation was pulled from the floor in a showdown over Iraq. The larger bill may be back as soon as September.

Government health officials have estimated as many as 1 million people may have been exposed during three decades of water contamination going back to 1957, a situation that was examined in a recent Associated Press investigation. The numbers include Marines in barracks and military families living on the sprawling Atlantic training and deployment base, as well as civilians who worked there.

The Marines would get more recognition, if U.S. Rep. Walter Jones gets his way. 

Language in the 2008 Defense Authorization Bill, which recently passed the House of Representatives, would change the name of the Department of Navy to the Department of Navy and Marine Corps, at the recommendation of the Farmville Republican.

Jones has been pushing for the name change for six years. One of the Marines' largest bases, Camp Lejeune, is in his congressional district.

The Marine Corps operates under the Department of the Navy, but Jones has argued that the service deserves equal billing.

"It is time that the Marine Corps be recognized as one of the strongest fighting teams in this country," Jones said in a House speech in support of the language.

The bill must still be considered by the Senate, which could remove the name change.

A Jacksonville woman met President Bush on Friday and was honored for her work as the spouse of a Marine. Shannon Maxwell organized a program called Hope for the Warriors after her husband, Lt. Col. Timothy Maxwell, was severely wounded in October 2004 from a mortar attack.

The program works to improve the quality of life for wounded troops and their families. Shannon Maxwell has organized annual fundraising events, found temporary housing for families visiting injured Marines at Camp Lejeune and created the Wounded Warrior Spousal Support Group, according to a release from the White House.

She was awarded a President’s Volunteer Service Award. Friday was Military Spouse Day, an observance signed into existence by President Reagan in 1984.