Ask Veterans Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5059) to direct the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to provide for the conduct of annual evaluations of mental health care and suicide prevention programs of the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs, to review the terms or characterization of the discharge or separation of certain individuals from the Armed Forces, to require a pilot program on loan repayment for psychiatrists who agree to serve in the Veterans Health Administration of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 5059, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in proud support of H.R. 5059, as amended, the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act.

In July, amidst the largest scandal--an accountability scandal--the Department of Veterans Affairs has ever faced, the committee heard testimony from three mothers whose sons had lost their lives to suicide following their service in our military.

One of those mothers was Susan Selke, the mother of Clay Hunt. Clay was a Marine Corps combat veteran who served honorably in both Afghanistan and Iraq, where he was wounded in battle.

Despite suffering from post-traumatic stress upon his separation, Clay devoted himself to humanitarian work and advocated on behalf of his fellow veterans.

Nevertheless, in March of 2011, Clay took his own life at the age of 28. Tragically, Clay was far from alone in his struggle, and his family and friends are far from alone in their heartbreak.

On average, 22 of our Nation's heroes commit suicide each day, in spite of significant increases in VA's mental health and suicide prevention budget, staff, and programs over the last several years.

What is more, for some groups of veterans, including female veterans and veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, suicide rates are actually getting worse.

Mr. Speaker, we must do more to help these veterans. With the passage of H.R. 5059, as amended, which is named in Clay's memory, I think we will. The Clay Hunt SAV Act will help struggling veterans access the supportive services and mental health care they need to, hopefully, save their lives.

To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of VA programs and increase awareness of available services, the bill would require an annual third-party evaluation of VA's mental health care and suicide prevention programs, and it would require that VA publish an interactive Web site to serve as the central source of information regarding VA mental health services.

To increase VA's capacity to meet the mental health care needs of our veterans, it would establish a pilot program to repay education loans for individuals who have received a degree in psychiatric medicine and who agree to work at VA for at least 2 years.

To create a seamless transition from Active Duty to veteran status and increase community support for those in need, it would establish a pilot program to assist veterans during transition and require VA to collaborate with nonprofit mental health organizations in their communities.

Importantly, the bill would also extend an additional 1 year of eligibility for VA health care services for certain combat veterans who have not yet enrolled and whose 5-year combat eligibility period recently expired.

Congressman Walz from Minnesota introduced the bill, along with me and Congresswoman Duckworth from Illinois. I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to both of them for their service to our Nation in their uniform and in this Congress.

I am proud to say that this bill has the support of numerous groups of veteran service organizations, including Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, the American Legion, the Disabled American Veterans, the Military Officers Association of America, and the Wounded Warrior Project.

The Clay Hunt SAV Act will not singlehandedly halt the scourge of suicide. The problems the VA health care system faces, and the mental health wounds of war that our veterans face, are far too deep for any single solution to resolve. But it is an important first step, and it is a step that we owe Clay and those like him who returned home from honorable service troubled in mind and in need of help.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 5059, as amended, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the First District of Michigan (Mr. Benishek), who is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Health.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the Second District of Indiana (Mrs. Walorski), who is a stalwart supporter of veterans in her district and who has a great future ahead in veteran issues.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the great State of Florida (Mr. Jolly), a colleague of mine and a fine member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee.

We have one more speaker before I close.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the Sixth District of Illinois (Mr. Roskam), a gentleman who does not serve on the committee with us but who has a very keen interest in veterans affairs issues.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would be remiss if I did not say thank you to the gentleman from Maine, Mike Michaud. As the ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, we, as a team, along with the members and the staff, have accomplished much this year, but it has all been done in a bipartisan way. We were able to move large pieces of legislation that will impact, in a positive way, veterans for years to come.

We uncovered probably the largest scandal that has ever been uncovered at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and we are now turning that agency in a direction to where it serves the veterans and not itself.

This wouldn't have happened without the steady hand of the gentleman from Maine, Mike Michaud, as the ranking member. Again, he is a fine man. He has been a great Representative, and he is a friend that will be missed. I look forward to going to Maine one day and hunting moose with Mike, whom I have pestered for 12 years to get a chance to go up and visit. But we will miss him, and we wish him well.

And with that, I want to take a moment to express my condolences and my appreciation to Clay's family, whom I understand are in the Capitol with us today, as well as to all the families of veterans who have lost their lives to suicide. My thoughts and my prayers are with each of them.

Once again, I encourage all the Members to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 5059, the Clay Hunt SAV Act, which was introduced in July of this year. It has 134 cosponsors, including myself, Chairman Miller, and the chairman and ranking member of the Health Care Subcommittee. Congressman Walz is the primary sponsor of this very important piece of legislation.

Over the years, the Veterans Affairs' Committee has taken steps to address the rise of suicide among veterans. In the 110th Congress we enacted the Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Act.

Earlier in this Congress we reported H.R. 4971, which included a measure sponsored by our colleague, Representative Sinema, that would protect veterans who have worked in classified environments by ensuring that appropriate mental health care treatment options exist for them.

Today, we are acting again, by considering H.R. 5059, the Clay Hunt SAV Act. There are no easy answers or quick fixes to addressing veterans suicide. It will take a concerted effort for all of us in Congress, the White House, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Defense to work together to find real solutions. Veterans support groups, community employers, and families are part of the solution too.

H.R. 5059 takes a number of steps toward that goal. It will improve the safety net for at-risk veterans, while introducing some accountability into the Department of Veterans Affairs mental health care and suicide prevention programs, using a third-party evaluation.

It will provide veterans with a Web site that will serve as a centralized source of information on mental health services.

H.R. 5059 initiates a program to help address some of the glaring mental health personnel shortages at the Department of Veterans Affairs. While the incentives in this bill are limited to the psychiatric field, I would like to see this effort expanded in the future to all mental health professional shortfalls.

H.R. 5059 also takes steps to temporarily expand peer support networks,

which we have heard are quite effective. I believe the reports required by this bill will confirm additional resources that should permanently be dedicated to fully utilizing peer support.

H.R. 5059 also provides an additional window of eligibility for combat veterans who may have missed the window of opportunity to sign up for VA health care. This extra time will help to ensure that veterans receive the health care, including mental health care, that they need. I would encourage my colleagues to support this piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Walz). I want to thank Mr. Walz for his continued effort to make sure that our veterans are taken care of in this great Nation of ours.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown), the incoming ranking member for the Veterans' Affairs Committee, who has been a strong advocate for our veterans for the number of years she has been on the committee.

Mr. Speaker, how many more speakers has the gentleman from Florida?

We have one more speaker, and I believe she is on her way.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Providing sufficient and effective mental health care to our veterans is an issue that I believe we must focus on. It is an issue that I hope will bring comprehensive policies in the next Congress. Finding real solutions will require all of us working together and will require sufficient resources and dedication.

I know my colleague, the gentleman from Minnesota, will be at the forefront of this fight, joined by Chairman Miller, Ranking Member- elect Ms. Brown, and all of the Republicans and Democrats on the Veterans' Affairs Committee. But I will not be in the House of Representatives next session to join that fight.

In my years in Congress, I have worked hard toward solutions that provide modern and effective care and benefits for our veterans. I have fought against inadequate budgets and for resources necessary to do the job. I have worked hard to improve the care and benefits of our newest veterans, while never forgetting our veterans from previous conflicts.

I have been encouraged by what we have all been able to accomplish together. But there is more that we have to do, and I know my colleagues will not give up the fight until we have won that battle.

But I do want to thank Chairman Miller for his leadership, his support, and his friendship over the years. It has been an honor to work with Chairman Miller, and it has been a pleasure to serve with him as well.

I also want to thank the members of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, both past and present. They have been true colleagues, mentors, and friends.

I want to wish the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown), our ranking member-elect, the best of luck, and I hope that she will enjoy her time as ranking member as much as I have enjoyed my time as ranking member.

And for the staff, both the majority and minority staff, they are the ones that make Members look good. They work very hard day and night to make sure that the policies that the members of the committee want are put into legislation.

I can say truly that the majority and minority staff in this Congress has worked very well together. They have put aside the partisanship that other committees have not. So I thank them for their hard work and dedication to making sure that we do what we are here to do, and that is to serve our veterans.

There is no more noble calling than serving those who have served this great Nation of ours.

And to my colleagues here in Congress who are veterans and to America's veterans, I will simply say, thank you. Thank you for your service to this great Nation of ours. It is because of you that we are the country that we are today. You never turned your back. You never faltered. And some of you have made the ultimate sacrifice and have given your life for this country. So thank you for your service.

Mr. Speaker, I would urge my colleagues to support this bill and move it to the Senate.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to extend my thanks to Chairman Miller and Ranking Member Michaud. I think an American public which, many times, thinks all politics is is bickering and fighting and pettiness needs to see the two examples that these leaders show, consistently putting the needs of our veterans first and foremost, finding areas to improve, and holding people accountable, but this piece of legislation, most importantly, finding solutions to make life better for our veterans. And for that, I am forever grateful to them for the work and for the staff that worked on this.

Ms. Duckworth is not able to be with us today. I said a lot of times that people talk about patriotism and service and heroics. In Tammy Duckworth's case, you just state her name, and her life is a living testament to that, and she works every day. We are just happy she is with her little one now, but she had a big part in this.

There are very few things that unite this country in the security of our Nation and in the care of our warriors, as I think many of us know, as do the millions who have fought the conflicts and who have fought extremism across the globe--people like Clay Hunt, a young marine, who went and did his duty. He was wounded in Iraq.

That was not enough for Clay, so he went to Afghanistan, where he experienced some of the most horrific conditions you could imagine. That was not enough for Clay. He came home after he did his service in the Marine Corps, and he continued to serve. He went to Haiti, taking his skills that he had learned in the military to help after the hurricane.

Then he came and sat in many of our offices and had many conversations--everything from the GI Bill to the transitioning back of our warriors who are dealing with PTS and making sure that we address their mental health issues.

I know, for many of us, Clay was the epitome of American patriotism, of strength, of everything that is right, and it comes as such a shock. I know it sounds like a cliche, but how could someone so strong and who had done so much be dealing with these demons? We know he was, and we know this Nation didn't do enough. We know he didn't receive the adequate care that he deserved and had earned. To be quite honest with you, it is in our Nation's best interest, both morally and security- wise and everything else, to give them that.

Again, he didn't stop there, and his parents didn't stop there. His parents--his mother and father--are here in this Chamber, as are his friends, to make sure this never happens to another family. Our friends at the veterans service organizations, like the IAVA and Paul Rykoff and his folks and the VFW, have asked us to do better.

The result of this piece of legislation is the folks like Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Michaud, Tammy Duckworth, Mr. Benishek, and others who have come down here to speak. Our differences are small compared to our commonalities, and our care for our warriors has to be there. You heard the specifics of this bill, some of the things that it will do.

There is not one of us who is kidding oneself that this is going to be the silver bullet, but it puts it on the forefront. It brings some solutions that came from our warriors, that came from best practices, that came from both sides of the aisle, and brought it forward to find real solutions.

The thing that most encourages me about this is that it is asking us, if things are not working, evaluate them and get rid of them, and bring the things forward that are going to work. Don't get buried in studies for 10 years. We don't have 10 years. We don't have 10 days for people. It is now.

That is, I think, the beauty of this piece of legislation. It starts to move those things forward. It starts to bring the communities back into this. It starts to understand a holistic approach to dealing with the issues of veterans' suicides, because this Nation cannot allow this to happen. We morally cannot. It attacks our soul when we do this. To be very honest, we can't afford to lose people like Clay Hunt.

Clay Hunt is our leader. He is our future leader. He is our business leader. He would at some point have been in this Chamber or wherever he would have chosen to have gone. That was his destiny, and this is happening over 22 times every day.

I encourage my colleagues to support this piece of legislation but, more importantly, to support the spirit that is behind it--bringing us together to get it right: to care for our warriors with the best possible use for our resources and an accountability to those resources to make sure that the outcome is most important.

That outcome is honoring our commitment to the reintegration of these warriors. Once they have done their service to this country, bring them home; make them whole; make sure that they are able to continue to serve this Nation as they wish.

For that, I am grateful. I am especially grateful for the leadership of Clay's family and of his mother, Susan, who absolutely said this can be done; this must be done; and it will be done. Thanks to these two gentlemen's leadership, it will.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 5059, legislation to improve mental health and suicide prevention services for our Nation's veterans.

Across the country today, there are families grieving, remembering loved ones who, in a moment of tragedy, took their own lives. These families also have in common another memory--the day their loved ones put on the uniform of the Armed Forces for the first time, who raised their right hands and took an oath to defend the Nation, to defend and protect each of us.

In many ways, we as a nation have failed to defend and protect them. We have failed to ensure sufficient access to mental health care and suicide prevention services.

We have remarkable caregivers and mental health counselors in our VA and DOD health systems who are on the front lines of mental health services every day, who do remarkable work; but, administratively, we must do more. We must empower veterans to seek immediate care for mental health and suicide prevention services. We must incentivize mental health professionals to join the VA workforce and deliver health care to our veterans, and we must improve the coordination between the VA and the DOD to deliver these services. This legislation does exactly that, and it is why it deserves our full support.

Mr. Speaker, this is a matter of national importance, but it is also a matter of personal conviction for many families, including for a mother in my district who, on Memorial Day of this year, at the C.W. Bill Young VA Medical Center at Bay Pines, approached me to share a story about the loss of her son who took his own life while awaiting enrollment in the VA, while awaiting mental health treatment from the VA. His mental health needs were left untreated, and he took his own life.

There are very few things more important for this body than to give voice to the voiceless. We are doing that today by speaking out about the tragic experiences of those who are no longer with us and by improving a health care system that provides remarkable care every day to our veterans but who need this Congress and this administration to enact much-needed changes. Mr. Speaker, this is critically important legislation, and I urge my colleagues to join me in its passage.

I thank the distinguished gentleman from Florida, the chairman.

Mr. Speaker, every day, 22 veterans take their own lives. Many of us in this Chamber have experienced this in our own districts. This has been a tragedy in my district as well. Sadly, on March 31, nearly 3 years ago, Clay Hunt was one of those 22 veterans who took his own life at the age of 28.

An Afghanistan and Iraq war veteran and suicide prevention advocate, Clay

Hunt epitomized what it meant to have a life of service both in and out of uniform. Today, we honor Clay and his family with H.R. 5059, the Clay Hunt SAV Act. Clay's story was one of bravery and dedication to our country.

He enlisted in the Marine Corps and served on several missions to Iraq and Afghanistan. After his final deployment to Afghanistan, his unit returned in October of 2008, and he was honorably discharged from the Marines.

Here is the key: Clay relied on the VA for medical care and received a 30 percent disability rating from the VA for PTSD. After realizing his PTSD is what prohibited him from keeping a steady job, he appealed the 30 percent rating and encountered a bureaucratic nightmare, including the VA's losing his files.

Clay had to wait months to get in to see a psychiatrist at a VA medical center. When he finally did, he told his mother he would never go back. Two weeks later, Clay took his own life. Five weeks after his death and 18 months after filing an appeal with the VA for his PTSD rating, Clay's appeal went through. His PTSD rating was 100 percent.

Too little, too late.

Clay's story details the urgency our Nation's heroes deserve in care. If we are going to lower this incredibly alarming rate of suicides, we have to improve the access and effectiveness of mental health care available to our returning heroes, and this step is a step in the right direction. The Clay Hunt SAV Act will increase access to mental health care and improve the quality of care that troops and veterans receive.

Together, we can change this system so no other veteran or spouse or parent will ever have to do what thousands of veterans have endured, including Clay. We owe it today to do what we can do and to continue the fight for our veterans, for what they have endured, and give them nothing but the best.