Investigators still face months of work before the start of the court martial for Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the psychiatrist accused of gunning down more than 40 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood earlier this month. But on Friday a panel of military legal experts said that's just the start of a lengthy process for his team of attorney's and the Fort Hood community.

Members of the National Institute of Military Justice said despite the complexity of the case -- multiple victims, widespread media coverage, and a defendant still facing serious injuries -- they still expect military officials to complete Hasan's court martial by the end of 2010. 

However, if sentenced to death Hasan's execution would not be nearly as speedy. Attorney Brian Baldrate said the average wait on the military's "death row" is eight years, and a case like Hasan's could take much longer. 

If you’ve applied for the Army’s retroactive stop-loss compensation program, you’ve probably received an e-mail saying your claim has hit a snag.

Maj. Roy Whitley estimates that the Army has told about 80 percent of applicants that it disagrees with them on how long they were held beyond the scheduled end of their service since 2001.

“Don’t misconstrue that as a broken claim; don’t default to ‘This is really bad news:’ It’s kind of anticipated,” said Whitley, project manager for the compensation program.

The claims have not been rejected; Instead, they have been assigned a case manager, Whitley explained on Thursday. Applicants are not required to submit more documentation.

Ft Hood is the topic of the day on Capitol Hill and across the Potomac at the Pentagon as the federal government begins fallout investigations of the massacre, hoping to answer a simple question:  How did this happen?

On the Hill, Sen. Jospeh Lieberman I.-Conn., chairs the first hearing on the issue, pushing ahead of a White House request to let them handle the investigation. 

At the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen will make their first appearance in the press briefing room since September 3.  The Associate Press has reported Gates will announce the details of the Defense Department review. 

Reporters also expect Gates to give his first extended remarks and face open questioning from the press corps about the tragedy and the investigation. 

Fiscal 2010 started 49 days ago, but Congress still hasn't approved a new budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs (and several other federal agencies).

But veterans groups breathed a sigh of relief last night when the Senate unanimously passed its version of the budget bill and sent the matter to a conference committee, the first positive steps in the process in weeks. The House passed its version in the summer.

The issue now goes before a conference committee, and lawmakers are hopeful they can reach a compromise by the end of this calendar year.

The proposal contains a 9 percent increase in veterans health care funds and the first advance appropriation for the VA -- a $48.2 billion down payment for the department in 2011, so veterans program coordinators won't have to worry as much about lengthy budget delays next year.

We need to hear from you.

The Army is holding a bloggers roundtable on Thursday on compensation for soldiers who were held under stop-loss between September 2001 and September 2008 in an effort to get the word out about the payouts.

But so far, several readers have posted on my recent blog that they have questions about how long it will take for their claims to be processed, and they have complained that they are having a hard time reaching someone from the Army about their claims.

President Barack Obama lent White House weight to the Pentagon’s call for more military exchanges with their Chinese counterparts while in Beijing on Tuesday.

"We meet here at a time when the relationship between the United States and China has never been more important to our collective future.  The major challenges of the 21st century, from climate change to nuclear proliferation to economic recovery, are challenges that touch both our nations, and challenges that neither of our nations can solve by acting alone," Obama said, in a joint appearance with China's President Hu Jintao.

A joint U.S.-China statement, the sides said the countries will take “concrete steps” to begin planning greater number of sustainable military-to-military exchanges, beginning with the bosses themselves: Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen.

This afternoon Texas Republican Rep. John Carter will introduce legislation which would grant the victims of the Fort Hood tragedy the same legal status as combat casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, opening the door for certain survivor financial benefits and making them eligible for the Purple Heart.

In a statement Carter called the shootings "a terrorist attack" and therefore “our wounded and the families of those who lost their lives should receive the same treatment, recognition, and benefits as if the attack occurred on a U.S. military installation in Iraq or Afghanistan.”

The distinction doesn't matter for medical care of the wounded, or for housing and Tricare eligibility for families of troops killed in the attack. And as long as the victims were paid up on their military life insurance and injury insurance, it won't affect those payouts.

Pentagon officials on Monday announced plans to expand the disability evaluation pilot to six more installations in the country, bringing the program total to 27 locations.

The original pilot, launched in 2007, was designed to eliminate duplicate injury evaluations by the agencies by linking both VA and DoD evaluations, letting a single medical analysis stand as the final determination for both active-duty medical boards and subsequent disability ratings.

It came about after complaints from veterans and outprocessing troops about the multiple visits it typically takes for patients to prove their injuries or illnesses, then repeat visits later needed to determine just how much their disability checks could total. In the interim, troops have to hope that paperwork isn't mishandled, miscoded or simply lost as they travel from doctor to doctor.