Keeping America's Promises to Its Veterans
KEEPING AMERICA'S PROMISES TO ITS VETERANS -- (Senate - January 26, 2005)
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, this morning I rise to speak about one of the issues that is facing our country, an issue we need to understand and live up to, a promise that we made to the young men and women who serve us overseas. Since this election, we have heard a lot about the crises that are facing our country and what our obligation is and the discussions that will occur in the Senate and around the country about those as we move forward.
Next week, we will hear from the President on the State of the Union. I will be listening very carefully to hear if he addresses the issue that I think is clearly one of the most important issues our country needs to address, and that is how we treat the young men and women who are coming home, who have served us in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the globe, and that we have the services available for them to keep the promise we made to them when they went to serve all of us. I am talking about the veterans who have come home to our country throughout our time, who have served us well, who fought for our freedom, who have been there for every one of us, and who are now facing severe shortages of services. I am taking about the promises we made to them for their health care, to make sure they are reintegrated into society in the United States and given what we have promised them when they went to serve all of us.
This morning we woke up to the news of 30-some Marines who have been tragically lost in an accident. Our hearts go out to their families, to their loved ones, and to all who know them, and we owe them and their families a sincere debt of gratitude. It is a reminder to all of us today of the service that these men and women give us, of the ultimate sacrifice, so we can have the freedoms that are so important to us at home.
It is a reminder to all of us that we owe them more than rhetoric on this floor or promises when they leave but fulfillment of those promises when they come home. We need to fullfil the promise of services available so their health care needs are met and that they are given the full support of this country when they return.
I was involved in working with our veterans many years ago. My own father was a veteran. He served us in World War II. He was one of the first soldiers into Okinawa. He was injured there when they went in. He went to Hawaii for a time, was in a hospital, and then went back to Okinawa to continue his services. He was an injured and disabled veteran all of his life.
I never knew of the sacrifices he gave or what his life story was until he died. We found his journals and read the day-to-day transcripts of what he as a young man, barely 20, did for our country overseas, the injuries he sustained, what he saw on the battlefield. He never talked about that when he came home.
As I read through those diaries day by day, I realized what a tremendous service he and thousands of other men and women have given to all of us so that we have the freedoms we have today, so that my grandson who is growing up in this country today has the freedoms his grandfather fought for.
Today, as I go home and talk to our veterans in Tacoma, Vancouver, and Walla Walla, our veterans who are struggling to get health care in north central Washington, I hear them begging us to help them get the health care services they were promised. We need to step up to the plate.
As I talk to the Army and to our Guard and Reserve members at home, they tell me about the thousands of soldiers who are now returning to Washington State and around the country who will face long lines, who will not have the services they need, particularly mental health and posttraumatic stress syndrome. I am deeply concerned that we are not putting in place the resources these veterans need to be there for them.
In 1972, I served my country in a unique way when I was in college. It was a time of war for our country, the Vietnam War. I volunteered to do my internship at WSU, Washington State University, at the veterans hospital in Seattle, WA. I served on the psychiatric ward. I worked day in and day out with our young men and women who were my age at the time returning from Vietnam. I saw the mental health scars they had.
What I saw inside the VA system was people who understood what they had gone through, who were willing to work with them day in and day out, but as I left that VA hospital every afternoon to go home, I was out on the street with people who did not understand and were not there to support these veterans.
I am committed at this time when our men and women come home from Iraq and Afghanistan and the missions we have sent them to around the world to make sure we are there for them and the support is there to reintegrate them into America.
I look at our budgets today and I see that is not the case. Later this afternoon Ambassador Nicholson, a very fine man, will be confirmed, most likely, on the Senate floor. I have met with him. I have talked with him about the tremendous backlog of services, about my concerns about the members of the services who are coming home today and the services that are not available. I know he is committed to doing the right thing.
What I will be listening to is the State of the Union next week, and the President's budget, more importantly, when it comes to Congress, to see if indeed it has the support we need for our veterans, for the services they so rightfully deserve and need to have in order to be able to reintegrate into this country and to be able to continue to have full and promising lives at home once they return.
I fear we are not going to see a VA budget that has those services. Today in Washington State we are hearing the commitments that have already been made in north central Washington for a clinic in Bellingham may not be able to happen because the budget moneys have been so severely cut back. That is wrong. These are promises these veterans have been given and that they need.
Veterans who live in Wenatchee, WA, should not have to travel 8 hours on icy mountain roads to be able to get the health care services they need. When I go up there and I talk to a wife of a veteran who has health problems and she tells me her husband cannot get to the doctor, I think our country has not fulfilled a promise we made. We have to keep those promises, and where those promises will be seen is in the budget and in the appropriations process this year, whether we put our money behind the rhetoric we hear every day from people who thank the people who serve us overseas.
The Democratic Senators have put forward an excellent bill that I will be talking about in the days and months to come. S. 13 is a bill that will keep our promise to American veterans. It is very important legislation, and I hope we get bipartisan support for it--I hope we get support across the country--and Members sign on to be a sponsor of this legislation to push this forward so we keep our promise to veterans.
S. 13, the bill that has been introduced, begins by expanding mental health care to all of our VA hospitals by 2006. This is extremely important. When I talk to our veterans organizations, they tell me as many as 20 percent or more of our men and women who are serving will come home with posttraumatic stress syndrome or mental health conditions, that we need to make sure they get the help and support they need to deal with that. So the first part of the bill will expand mental health care to all of our VA hospitals by 2006.
Secondly, it will make prescription drugs readily available to veterans. Under current regulations, a veteran who receives a prescription from a private doctor has to complete a physical with a VA physician before the VA will honor their prescription. That kind of redtape costs the VA an estimated billion dollars or more each year. So our bill will overturn that regulation and provide veterans with a quick and easy access to prescription drugs. This will save us money and it will help our veterans who so desperately need it.
This bill will also ensure that no veteran is forced to choose between their disability compensation and their retirement pay by 2006. This is an issue I hear about in every corner of my State from all veterans. Those who
served our country should not have to choose between their disability payments and their retirement pay. The Senate has addressed this issue before. In conference, we were not able to move it as far as we needed to. This bill fixes it so veterans no longer face that difficult choice.
This bill also creates a seamless transition from the military to the VA. Many of our veterans who have returned home have encountered obstacles to getting the services they deserve when they leave their active-duty status. While the Defense and Veterans Departments have been trying to iron out the kinks by preventing a seamless transition from military life to the VA system, the agencies have not completed any of the seven recommendations for this that have been offered by the President's task force.
S. 13 will enact each of these seven recommendations, including requiring preseparation medical examinations and disability benefits counseling, removing information-sharing barriers, and requiring greater cooperation between the VA and the DOD in tracking disabilities resulting from occupational exposure to hazardous materials.
Finally, the S. 13 that has been introduced will enact a new GI bill for the 21st century. I hope again all of our colleagues will sign on to this legislation so we can put our words and our reality behind a promise that has been made to the men and women who serve us in this country.
I think this is an extremely critical area and a crisis when we look out across the country at the thousands of men and women who are serving who are going to be facing already long lines at VA hospitals, already decreased services, for whom we need to make sure of mental health services as quickly and efficiently as possible so we do not see later complications in their families, in their communities, or in their own worklife.
Yesterday, the President put out his $80 billion supplemental for the Iraq war. I will, of course, support that supplemental. It is absolutely critical that we make sure those who are serving us have the training, the equipment, and the supplies they need to do what we have asked them to do abroad for all of us, but it is equally important that we keep the promise to them when they come home. So when that supplemental comes before the Senate I intend to offer an amendment, along with Senator Akaka, the ranking member on the Veterans' Committee, to add $2 billion to the supplemental to make sure our veterans get the services they need.
We cannot rely on rhetoric. We cannot rely on empty promises. We need to make sure that the part of the commitment we have when we go to war includes taking care of those men and women when they return home.
These proposals are not about growing the size of the Government. They are not about expanding what we owe. It is about keeping a promise. It is about living up to the promises we have made to those who have given so much to all of us. Our veterans deserve the best from us. S. 13, this legislation I just talked about, works to make sure those goals become a reality. We have a tremendous responsibility and we have a great opportunity in this Congress to keep the promise President Abraham Lincoln made 140 years ago, and that is to care for the veteran who has borne the battle, his widow and his orphan. Those words ring as true today as they did 140 years ago, and I intend in every way I can, both in my work on the Veterans Committee, my work on the Appropriations Committee, and my work on the floor, to keep the promise we gave to those who are serving us to make sure they are taken care of when they return home.
I yield the floor.
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