OK Badger, I found out that this particular hearing was over 5.5 hours long, and as you described below it was broken up in to two segments. The first providing testimony from Military, and administration officials , the second part being testimony of family members.
A few things I found out were these Democrats that were MIA for the second half did not walk out during testimony as described by sensationalist story telling, they left during the break and they had prior to coming said they could only be there for the official portion of terstimony. Apparently it was only 6 of the 24 republicans on the committee that stayed for this second portion too.

When I was young I listened to Rush Limbaugh and Bob Grant, I found my self on the conservative side of things. But after hearing many stories just like this one, where upon further investigation I found much was being made from nothing. I also found that 90% of what I heard from these guys were lies.
So later in life having settled in to middle calss-dom and working for rich people who tried to cheat me out of every nickle while they sat on millions I decided to swing left and landed on the liberal side of things. So I tried listening to Kieth Olberman and Rachael Maddow, but alas once again I found I was being lied to constantly by manipulation of facts.
Eventually I learned almost everything that comes in an email thats intent is to "fire me up" or comes from one of these talking heads tends to always be bullshit when the details are added back in.

I still havent found a complete story, but what I have learned so far is that the oversight committee w2as made up of 24 republicans and 17 democrats . Apparently only 8 of the republican members showed up to this to begin with, and the so called "walk out" didnt actually occur during testimony but between two parts of a broken up session. So although this is certainly another example of these lazy fucks in elected positions not doing what they are paid/ elected to do there is clearly a slant to the version implied here.

Also this story originaly broke as a tweet from Darryl Issa who was taking pictures on his phone and tweeting during the hearings. Sensational stories often end up not being quite so sensational when the facts roll in.

What I want to know is WHY did they walk out?
15 dems walked out and it doubt it was lemmings mentality. It's almost like someone made them leave.
I don't hate or like any specific group. I hate individuals in the groups. Dems and Republicans have their faults, I couldn't sit in a room with either a conservative republican or a die hard democrat. Both would drive me to suicide in under an hour.
I was surprised to see Duckworth's name on that list, she's kind of a bad ass at times and has earned her respect. I would listen to her even if I didn't agree with what she had to say out of respect. To see her walk out of this blew my mind, she's got more in common with those dead soldiers then she does with the Reps sitting next to her.