Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall 369, I was unable to vote because of pressing business with my constituents in my home district. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Madam Speaker, my colleagues, and I rise today to speak about a concurrent resolution that I have just introduced that recognizes the service and sacrifice of our law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty.

My legislation would express the sense of Congress that a stamp. called the Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Stamp, should be

issued to honor law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty.

On average, a law enforcement officer is killed in America every other day. Since 1794, when recordkeeping started, more than 17,900 officers have lost their lives in service to their communities. In 2007, 186 officers were killed in the line of duty, an increase of more than 28 percent from the year prior.

Too many police officers are killed or injured in the line of duty every day and this legislation is a way to thank those who put their lives in danger every time they put on their uniforms. I am proud to sponsor such worthy legislation.

I invite my colleagues to join with me in commending our law enforcement officers. It is extremely important that we honor these everyday heroes! Please join me in supporting H. Con. Res. 356.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased, as a cosponsor of H. Res. 1054, to recognize the service and achievements of the women in the Armed Forces and the nation's women veterans. I thank my San Diego colleague, Congresswoman Susan Davis, for introducing this important resolution.

These women have been the unsung heroes of every war since the Revolutionary War. So, as we approach Memorial Day, it is fitting that we sing their praises. They are playing an increasingly prominent and important role in our nation's military forces. 350,000 are now serving, making up 15 percent of active duty personnel, 15 percent of Reserves, and 17 percent of the National Guard. More than 185,000 have been deployed since 2001.

Women veterans are second only to elderly veterans as the fastest growing segment of the veteran population. 255,000 women use VA health services today. There are 1.7 million women veterans, 7 percent of the total veteran population--expected to be 10 percent by 2020.

As Chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, I want to report that Congress has responded to the challenge of meeting the needs of women veterans. Today, there exist within the Department of Veterans Affairs, two main offices specifically focused on addressing the needs of women veterans, put into place by Congress.

The 102nd Congress passed landmark legislation (P.L. 102-484) which authorized VA to provide gender-specific health care at VA medical facilities. The position of Director of Women's Health was also created by this law. This position has recently been elevated to the Chief Consultant on Women Veterans' Health, Strategic Health Care Group, reporting to the Undersecretary for Health (of the Veterans Health Administration). At each medical center, a Women Veterans Program Manager is ready to assist women veterans with their health care.

More recently, Congress passed P.L. 108-422 to extend VA's authority to offer Military Sexual Trauma Counseling and Treatment to active duty service members.

In addition, The Center for Women Veterans was established by the 103rd Congress in P.L. 103-446 to oversee the Department's programs for women veterans. The Center Director reports to and is an advisor to the VA Secretary on matters related to policies, legislation, programs, issues and initiatives affecting women veterans. To name a few of its activities:

Perform outreach to minority women veterans, homeless women veterans with children, elderly women veterans, and women veterans living in rural areas.

Monitor transition assistance program (TAP) briefings to ensure that the gender-specific information about benefits and services is provided to women service members.

Monitor VA Office of Research and Development to ensure that VA research includes the issues of women veterans.

Their goal is to identify any programs that are unresponsive or insensitive to women veterans and to address their deficiencies. The center is concerned with Department-wide legislative policies, within the VHA and VBA (Veterans Benefits Administration) and NCA (National Cemetery Administration), as well as the State offices.

The center is holding the 4th National Summit on Women Veterans' Issues on June 20-22 in Washington, DC.

H.R. 4107, the Women's Veterans Health Care Improvements Act, has been introduced by my colleague serving on the VA Committee, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin. This is one of a number of ways that we are currently working on behalf of women veterans.

The House VA Committee continues to provide oversight to ensure that the laws we have passed are doing the job and that women veterans are receiving the information, benefits and care they deserve.

In the light of these actions by Congress, it is my hope that all women veterans will receive the care and benefits they have earned through their service and accomplishments that we recognize here today.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3681) to amend title 38, United States Code, to authorize the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to advertise in the national media to promote awareness of benefits under laws administered by the Secretary, as amended.

I would yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we are in the midst of a package of 10 separate pieces of legislation that honors our Nation's veterans, our Nation's most deserving citizens, appropriately enough, as we prepare to honor them on Memorial Day. As we honor our fallen heroes, we cannot forget those who need either health or other benefits from our Nation.

That is what these bills do. They extend benefits in a whole range of areas: Health care, substance abuse and spina bifida, reimbursement for emergency treatment outside the VA facilities, construction of new facilities to serve these heroes. We also address our responsibility for oversight of the VA by mandating the revision and update of administrative policies so that the VA can better serve our veterans.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, we have had many opportunities for oversight recently. We have had in a court case the discovery of e- mails which seem to indicate that our VA management was not being totally transparent on the number of suicides, for example, of our recent Iraqi veterans. Just last week, another e-mail was discovered that indicated that we should not adequately diagnose PTSD, post- traumatic stress disorder, and instead give these young men and women lesser kinds of diagnoses, which would cost us less.

It is unacceptable to the Congress of the United States and to the American people that the administration set up to serve our veterans would be finding ways to save money and not treating the veterans for their needs. We intend to root that kind of attitude out of the VA and to make sure that all our veterans, whether they are just coming back from Iraq or Afghanistan, or those that served us earlier in Vietnam or World War II and Korea and the Persian Gulf War I, to make sure that all of their needs are met, and that is what we are committed to and that is what these bills on the floor today indicate.

We also address the compensation cost-of-living adjustment that is so important to our veterans who base their income on the dependency and indemnity compensation. They need an annual increase to cover the cost of living, and this bill before us today will assure that.

It is my hope that on this Memorial Day we, as a Nation, remember the words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A half century ago he said ``Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men,'' and he would say, I am sure today, women, ``have died to win them.'' President Washington, over 220 years ago, said, ``The best guarantee of the morale of our fighting troops is a sense of how they are going to be treated when they come home.''

So let us remember these words of Roosevelt, of Washington, as we prepare on Memorial Day to recognize and remember those heroes who have died in uniform. Our Nation has a proud legacy of appreciation and commitment, and we have to make sure that they know that we appreciate them and we know that our liberty, which we enjoy today, depended on them.

The bills before us today have come from all of our legislative subcommittees. Members on both sides of the aisle and all the committee worked very hard. I want to thank Chairman Michaud of the Health Committee, with his Ranking Member Miller of Florida, I want to thank the chair and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, Ms. Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota, and Mr. Boozman of Arkansas, and also the chair and the ranking member of the Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Hall, and the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Lamborn.

We are now looking at H.R. 3681, which would authorize the VA Secretary to purchase national media outlets to inform veterans of their benefits. You would think we would not have to do such legislation, Mr. Speaker, but apparently we do. Over the past 2 years, the Committee on Veterans' Affairs has conducted several hearings to determine how to improve the outreach to our veterans, and while various agencies have made tremendous improvement, more needs to be done to inform veterans of the entitlements they rightfully deserve and how to access those benefits.

Providing our veterans the information they need on television is a crucial component that can affect the livelihood of our veterans and their dependents. So I ask all of you to join me in supporting H.R. 3681.

I would reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to a very hard working new member of our committee, in fact, the highest enlisted man ever elected to the Congress of the United States, Command Sergeant Major Tim Walz of Minnesota.

I have no further speakers.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 3681, as amended.

I urge all my colleagues to support H.R. 3681 and yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3819) to amend title 38, United States Code, to require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to reimburse veterans receiving emergency treatment in non-Department of Veterans Affairs facilities for such treatment until such veterans are transferred to Department facilities, and for other purposes, as amended.

I thank the Speaker.

This bill comes to us from a great new Member from the State of Ohio (Mr. Space), and I'm going to yield to him as much time as he may consume to explain the bill.

Mr. Speaker, this is a perfect example of the way we do the best legislation. Mr. Space from Ohio encountered a problem in his district, looked into solving it. It turns out it's a problem in every district.

So we thank Mr. Space for his work on this, for his recognizing the problem. It is an unacceptable position for a veteran to be in, that they're in never-neverland where they have been stabilized in a hospital but yet not accepted at a VA hospital and they are liable for the cost. What you have done is take that worry and that cost off of the veteran and allowed us to deal with him or her in a very respectful and clear way.

So we thank Mr. Space for this legislation.

I don't have any further speakers, and I would reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 3819, as amended.

I urge my colleagues to unanimously support this bill, and I yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill

(H.R. 3889) to amend title 38, United States Code, to require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to conduct a longitudinal study of the vocational rehabilitation programs administered by the Secretary, as amended.

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

As I said earlier, amongst this package of bills are legislation from both sides of the aisle. This one comes to us from the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, Mr. Boozman, and I thank him for this important bill.

What H.R. 3889 does is require the VA to conduct what is called a longitudinal study for at least 20 years of the veterans who began participating in the VA's Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Program. The bill requires annual reports to Congress to assist with better management of the program.

It's an important step in ensuring that the Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Program has services that are meeting the needs of our veterans as they seek to heal from their injuries and reenter civilian life.

So I hope we all support H.R. 3889.

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

We reserve the balance of our time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 3889, as amended.

I yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5554) to amend title 38, United States Code, to expand and improve health care services available to veterans from the Department of Veterans Affairs for substance use disorders, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is named after Justin Bailey, who was a veteran of the Iraq War who died in a domiciliary facility of the Department of Veterans Affairs while receiving care for PTSD and a substance use disorder, a very tragic story but one that seems to be becoming all too familiar.

We have seen in recent weeks internal communications between members of the VA staff who we rely on to treat soldiers like Justin Bailey who seem to not take the symptoms of PTSD or suicide very seriously. They try to manipulate the data so we don't know all the facts. They try to get cheaper treatment if a diagnosis other than PTSD is made, and we are not serving our veterans when this occurs. We must not take lightly the commitment of servicemembers like Justin Bailey who choose to defend the country and freedoms that we enjoy.

We know the problems that veterans who have served in past wars face. We know about post-traumatic stress disorder. We know about the high reported incidence of substance abuse, and that it is what we call a common co-morbidity to mental health issues. And we, of course, unfortunately know about the high rate of homelessness. We know about these issues because we have seen entire generations of veterans tackle these problems, many without proper support from the VA and many who find themselves on the streets homeless or we see in statistics on suicide.

We must commit ourselves that whatever is necessary to prevent the newest generation of veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq will be done so they do not experience these same devastating issues.

There is growing concern about the reported effects of combat deployments on Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom servicemembers. The suicide rates are on the rise back to where they were in our Vietnam era.

We know the rate of post-traumatic stress disorder among these veterans has been estimated at about a third. I think if you include hidden symptoms of traumatic brain injury we're up to probably double that or more.

We know that the rate of homelessness amongst this group is growing. The same cycles that we saw with Vietnam are repeating themselves.

We cannot as a Congress, as a Nation allow this to happen again. We must reinforce our commitment to take care of those who have served. This is a cost of war. We're spending $1 billion, Madam Speaker, on the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars every two days, $1 billion every 2 days. Shouldn't our servicemembers get all the treatment they need? We have the money. It's a question of our will and our priorities.

So I urge you to support H.R. 5554. We would improve and expand the VA health care services available for veterans for substance use disorders, and require that all VA medical centers provide access to the full continuum of care for these disorders.

We also want to make sure that the Secretary reaches out to our OIF/ OEF veterans with substance abuse disorders, and make sure that the funding is in place for the full continuum of care no matter where a veteran lives.

We also ask for a complete report on the services furnished by the Department in the last fiscal year, and have a 2-year pilot program on providing assessment, education and treatment via the Internet to veterans with substance use disorders. And finally, we would require the VA to conduct a review and report on the residential mental health facilities within the system.

I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 5554. We will hear from Congressman Michaud from Maine, the chairman of our Health Subcommittee, who wrote this bill. And he will have a chance to really explain it better after we hear from our ranking member.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the author of the bill and the Chair of our Health Subcommittee of the Veterans' Committee in the Congress, the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Michaud).

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to a very active, aggressive member of our committee, who is always there when we need her, the gentlelady from Nevada (Ms. Berkley).

I want to thank the gentlelady from Nevada for putting a real face to this problem. I know it means a lot to the family, but it means a lot to all of us. So thank you.

Another great member of our committee, Mr. Rodriguez from Texas, dealt with mental health issues in his previous life, and I will yield to him as much time as he might consume.

Thank you, Mr. Rodriguez, for your expertise.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 5554, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5664) to amend title 38, United States Code, to direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to update at least once every six years the plans and specifications for specially adapted housing furnished to veterans by the Secretary, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, again we thank and we draw on the expertise of Mr. Rodriguez of Texas for this bill. It's a commonsense solution to assist our Nation's veterans.

We would simply require the Secretary of the VA to furnish and update a handbook for designs of specially adapted housing to include vision impairments, impairments to the upper limbs, and burn injuries.

Ensuring that our brave men and women have a comfortable home to heal from the injuries of war is the very least we can do for our veterans. This is especially true since the last time this VA pamphlet was published was 30 years ago, in 1978.

I feel confident that with this legislation the VA can provide improved guidance to incorporate today's medical breakthroughs in health care and any advanced technologies. I hope all my colleagues will support H.R. 5664.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the author of the legislation, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rodriguez).

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 5664, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5729) to amend title 38, United States Code, to direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to provide comprehensive health care to children of Vietnam veterans born with spina bifida, and for other purposes, as amended.

Madam Speaker, in this Congress we are blessed with having many new Members who take an active role in the legislative process and are writing legislation, and one of those is the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Ellsworth), who brings us this bill, and I yield to him such time as he may consume.

Madam Speaker, I would thank again the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Ellsworth) for recognizing a problem, for having so much energy, and bringing us a solution.

We salute you for doing that.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 5729, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5826) to increase, effective as of December 1, 2008, the rates of disability compensation for veterans with service-connected disabilities and the rates of dependency and indemnity compensation for survivors of certain service-connected disabled veterans, and for other purposes.

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

This bill is called the Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act, which was introduced by myself and Mr. Rodriguez of Texas. And I want to thank our ranking member, Mr. Buyer, who, of course, supported this legislation and helped us to get here with unanimous support from our committee.

The fact that we were able to get this bill to the floor only a month after its introduction shows the House leadership's commitment to our Nation's veterans and their survivors.

Since 1976 Congress has passed a measure to direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to increase the rates of basic compensation for disabled veterans and the rates of dependency and indemnity compensation, so-called DIC, to their survivors and dependents, along with other benefits, in order to keep pace with the rising cost of living. The disability COLA here would be effective on December 1 of this year and will be equal to that provided on an annual basis to Social Security recipients.

Madam Speaker, this bill will provide over 3 million disabled veterans from the World War I era through the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan that VA estimates will be receiving disability compensation for the coming fiscal year. It will help over 300,000 of their survivors during the same period.

Many of the nearly 3.5 million recipients of these benefits depend on these tax-free payments not only to provide for their own basic needs but those of their spouses, children, and parents as well. Without an annual COLA increase, these veterans and their families would see the value of their hard-earned benefits slowly erode.

We would be derelict in our duty if we failed to guarantee that those who sacrifice so much for this country receive benefits and services that don't keep pace with their necessities. I know we have had some disagreement over the past weeks over what, and how, our priorities for veterans should be funded. But on this bill, there is no disagreement. The veterans compensation COLA is included in the CBO baseline. In layman's terms, that means we have already paid for this.

Regardless of whether or not you agree or disagree with the funding of the war in Iraq, our young men and women who have served in our Armed

Forces deserve to be adequately compensated for injuries due to their military service. We fund the war, we must fund the warrior, and their families and their survivors, by ensuring their benefits will keep pace with their living expenses. Let's ensure that these benefits make ends meet at the end of the month.

Madam Speaker, as we approach our country's 140th Memorial Day commemoration, I ask all my colleagues to support this bill and send a clear message of support to our troops: You will be taken care of when you return, and we will not forget your sacrifice.

No action by a Member of Congress is more irritating to many Americans than those who say they support the troops but then turn a cold shoulder when those same troops come home, become veterans, and need our help to become whole again. That costs money; money we should not hesitate to spend, just like our military men and women did not hesitate to offer to lay down their lives to defend our freedom and the way of life that we cherish.

I ask my colleagues to consider these facts when voting on the full portfolio of veterans' legislation that is under consideration on the floor today, and of course to support passage of this bill, the Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2008.

I would reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I would yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rodriguez) who authored this bill.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 5826.

Madam Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support H.R. 5826 and would yield back our time.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5856) to increase, effective as of December 1, 2008, the rates of disability compensation for veterans with service-connected disabilities and the rates of dependency and indemnity compensation for survivors of certain service-connected disabled veterans, and for other purposes.

Madam Speaker, this is one of the most important and difficult pieces of legislation to come to the Health Subcommittee of our committee. The chairman, Mr. Michaud of Maine, has done an incredibly good job, along with his ranking member, Mr. Miller. I would yield to Mr. Michaud such time as he might consume to explain the bill.

Madam Speaker, as I said before, we have some very active new members in our caucus, and Mr. Kagen from Green Bay, Wisconsin, brought to us some needs he would like to speak on, and I am glad we know there are other needs in Green Bay besides a new quarterback. I would yield to him such time as he may consume.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rodriguez).

Madam Speaker, I certainly appreciate the remarks of Mr. Buyer and the bipartisan work that was necessary to get this bill to the floor in the current form.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I would ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 5856.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6048) to amend the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to provide for the protection of child custody arrangements for parents who are members of the Armed Forces deployed in support of a contingency operation.

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

Madam Speaker, this bill, which was introduced by Mr. Turner of Ohio, a member of our committee, amends the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to provide for the protection of child custody arrangements for parents who are members of the Armed Forces deployed in support of a contingency operation.

This measure restricts the ability of a court to order change in a custody arrangement that predates the deployment of a servicemember. It mandates that once a deployment is completed, the custody arrangements will be reinstated if changed during the deployment. The bill also requires that a court may not consider the absence of the servicemember because of deployment as a factor in determining the best interests of the child. Importantly, this bill provides courts with the ability to order a temporary custody arrangement or to prevent the reinstatement of a prior custody arrangement when the servicemember returns upon a showing of clear and convincing evidence that it is in the best interests of the child.

We are faced with a conflict between the protection of the rights of our servicemembers, which is a Federal responsibility, and child custody issues, which are traditionally within the purview of our States. I believe that Mr. Turner's bill strikes the necessary balance between these interests and provides an important safeguard for our servicemembers and their children, and I urge my colleagues to support the measure.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, we are coming to the conclusion of the 10- bill package that the Veterans' Affairs Committee presented today on the floor in anticipation of the Memorial Day holiday. We honor those whose lives were lost serving their Nation, and in their memory we have presented these 10 bills that provide a variety of benefits in all kinds of ways. And I thanked all the members of our subcommittees, but I want to thank the staff on both the majority and minority side who have participated in the drafting and the amending of these bills. It takes a lot of work from the staff, and we want to both, Mr. Buyer and I, thank them.

I will yield to the gentleman from Indiana.

Thank you, Mr. Buyer.

Madam Speaker, as I said, as we prepare for Memorial Day, I think all of us in this Congress want to assure the servicemembers who have served this Nation in the past and those who are deployed today.

We are fighting a war that is very divisive in this country and in this Congress, but we are united in saying that every young man and woman who comes back from that conflict is going to get all the care, the love, the attention, the honor, and dignity that they deserve.

They are coming back with enormous difficulties, many of them. Because of the advances in our medicine and the incredible expertise on the battlefield of those who medivac these injured out, the incredible medical teams in the forward base hospitals and the regional hospitals and in Germany, we are saving lives that in previous wars would not have been saved. If you survive a battlefield injury, you will have a 95 percent chance of surviving the war. That is an incredible statistic when compared to any other war in history.

But that means, when these soldiers come back there is a very high percentage of those with brain injury, a very high percentage of those with psychological wounds, one of which we refer to as PTSD, posttraumatic stress disorder. And we have an obligation as a Nation to treat every single one of these with the maximum quality of health care that they can get in this Nation. And yet, we have had examples of soldiers all around the Nation who have simply not gotten the attention that they require.

We have had reports of soldiers showing up to medical facilities saying they had PTSD or suicidal thoughts, being told that there was nobody to meet with them for 4 or 5 weeks, and they would go home and commit suicide. We have had lots of reports of those who did not receive adequate care. At the same time, we were not getting the full information on the numbers of cases of PTSD, the amount of resources needed to deal with them, or the number of suicides that were committed or are being committed by our Nation's veterans.

Madam Speaker, each month we have 1,000 suicide attempts by those under care of our VA system. And those under care mean only about one- fifth of all the veterans in our Nation. That is an astounding statistic which says that we have a job to do about mental health and about dealing with these, especially psychological injuries.

And we know what happens if we don't do our job right with these young men and women. We already had the canaries in the mine with our Vietnam vets. When our veterans returned from Vietnam, many of us who were opposed to that war made a mistake. We did not differentiate between the war and the warrior, and so the warriors did not get all the care, the love, the attention, the honor, and dignity that I talked about earlier. And this society has paid a heavy price for that. Individuals, families, neighborhoods have paid a heavy price. Half of the homeless on the street tonight, Madam Speaker, are Vietnam vets, about 200,000.

There have been more deaths by suicide of Vietnam vets than died in the original war by combat. And we have had the head of our mental health agency in this Nation say that the same will be probably true of Iraq; we will have more suicides than battlefield deaths.

That is not only a tragedy, but it is a preventible tragedy. We have to say that we are going to put the resources in to deal with these issues. It is part of the cost of war. As I said earlier, Madam Speaker, we are spending $1 billion every 2 days on the war in Iraq. Surely we can spend the hundreds of millions or billions that are required to treat the mental health needs of our older veterans and our newer veterans. This is absolutely required. We must do this job and do it right.

As George Washington said, the biggest factor in the morale of our fighting troops is the sense of how they are going to be treated when they come home. We have to do a better job of treating them when they come home.

Our committee, Madam Speaker, and this Congress provided in this fiscal year and the coming fiscal year almost $20 billion of new money for health care. That represents over a 40 percent increase in the budgets that we started off with 2 fiscal years ago. Our job is to make sure that the money is spent right, our oversight job. Now that they have the resources, are they hiring the

mental health professionals? Are they doing the diagnoses and treatments?

It is absolutely apparent, Madam Speaker, that tens of thousands of our young people are getting out of the military or the Reserve or the National Guard without being adequately diagnosed for brain injury or PTSD. Let me say that again. We have tens of thousands of our young people being discharged from the military or from the Reserve or National Guard without diagnosis for PTSD or brain injury. That means tens of thousands of ticking time bombs are out on the street. We need to do a better job.

There is a stigma against adequate evaluation and early treatment. The military, or at least many members of the military, seem to give their younger troops the sense that it is not macho, it is not marine- like, it is not soldier-like to have mental illness. That it is a weakness. You have got to buck up, sergeant, and not have any mental illness. So we have folks who get a questionnaire about some of the risk factors, and they just say no. They know they are supposed to say no, because they want to be home, they don't want any influence on their future career or any possible promotion. So there is a dynamic within our military not to adequately diagnose.

The VA says they have mandatory screening for these illnesses, for these injuries when people come to the VA for treatment. Well, they may not come to the VA for treatment. We don't have an outreach that goes after every single one of them. And when they come in, they get a questionnaire by an intake clerk of two questions. Anybody who wants not to have any of the stigma of mental illness knows to say no on those two questions. Besides, we are told there are 15 risk factors for PTSD and suicide. Why don't we ask about all of them? Why don't we have a mandatory evaluation by competent mental health personnel before anybody gets discharged or leaves the National Guard or leaves the Reserves? This has to be done, Madam Speaker. We have to get rid of the stigma and do it in a way where we allow the soldiers to do it as part of their company, for example, so they have that comradeship and with their family to help both diagnosis and treatment.

So we have a big job to do as we celebrate this Memorial Day. We have a job to do with the 1.6 million troops who have been deployed already, 800,000 of them have returned home. We have a great deal to do with the other 23 million of our veterans from previous wars.

We have to do this job right, Madam Speaker. And on this Memorial Day, let us recommit ourselves to doing the job right.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I would ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and add extraneous material to H.R. 6048.

I would yield back the balance of my time.

I hear my colleagues on the other side talking about political games and partisanship and process. The GI Bill of 1944 made the middle class of this Nation. Many of us are here today because of the GI Bill. My dad came back from World War II and was able to get some education, but he bought a house in Levittown, New York, for a couple grand, and we became part of the middle class for the first time in our history.

It's time for a GI Bill for the 21st century, and that's what this supplemental has. It says to our young men and women who are fighting, We're going to pay for the full cost of college for 4 years when you get back; we're going to take care of some of the living expenses if you have a family, and we're going to put the National Guard and Reserve that are doing so much of the fighting in Iraq as eligible for most of the benefits for the GI Bill. That's what we need in the supplemental.

We have a supplemental for the war. We need a supplemental for the warrior. The fact the first year, 2 years of this bill for the GI Bill was paid for, we

spent the same amount in 2 days of the war in Iraq. This is a reasonable amount of money to spend on those who have given us so much.

General Washington said over 220 years ago, The single most important factor in the morale of our fighting troops is a sense of how they're going to be treated when they come home. When they come home, many of them with amputations, many of them with psychological wounds, we want to say we're going to make sure we take care of you, we're going to make sure you get some college education, we're going to make sure that you can take a part of the American dream. That's what we owe our soldiers. That's what we owe our Reserve and National Guard, and that's what this supplemental has.

I don't care. You can talk about partisanship and political games. We're talking about the welfare of these young men and women who have given so much. Let's give them a part of the American Dream.

Madam Speaker and colleagues, I rise today to speak about a resolution that I have just introduced that expresses the sense of the Congress that all American flags flown over Federal Government buildings and on federal property should be made in the United States.

The U.S. Census bureau estimates that $5.3 million worth of American flags were imported from other countries in 2006, mostly from China. Even though U.S. law requires every flag be labeled with its ``country of origin,'' the figure of foreign-made American flags has steadily grown over the past few years. This is an absolute shame!

The American flag is much more than our national symbol. It embodies our courage, liberty, and justice. The flag reminds us each and every day of the blood that was shed so that we may enjoy our freedoms. So as we proudly fly the Stars and Stripes, we must be sure that they are homespun in the United States!

So as we approach the few months where we celebrate Memorial Day, Flag Day, and Independence Day, I invite my colleagues and fellow patriots to join with me in honoring our American flag every day! Please join me in supporting H. Res. 1182

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall 304, I was unable to vote because of pressing business with my constituents in my home district. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''