Coronavirus

Floor Speech

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Mr. TILLIS. Madam President, before the senior Senator from Mississippi leaves, I would like to thank him for his comments and for his service to the Nation. He actually spent some quality time in my great State of North Carolina when he was in the Air Force.

Senator Wicker, thank you for your service and for your father's as well.

I rise for the same purpose--to thank our men and women in uniform, our veterans, and those actively serving.

In North Carolina, we have a proud tradition of military service. We have one of the fastest growing populations of veterans in the Nation. We will have surpassed a million over the next couple of years. We also have over 100,000 Active-Duty servicemembers who serve bravely from Fort Bragg, Camp Lejeune, Cherry Point, New River, and Seymour Johnson, which is where my colleague from Mississippi served. We also have a fantastic, well-decorated National Guard and the largest air station for the Coast Guard right up in the northeast part of our State. We have a proud tradition of military service, and I am proud to serve them as their U.S. Senator.

I also have the privilege of serving as the chairman of the Personnel Subcommittee on the Senate Armed Services Committee and on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, where we work every day to try to make life better for our men and women who serve today and for our veterans who have served in the past.

I have to say, with regard to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, it is one of my favorite committees because--and the American people need to recognize this--we almost always come together, Republicans and Democrats, to continue to make installments on a debt we can never fully repay. Senator Wicker talked about some of the progress we have made with the VA MISSION Act, which makes sure that we provide to the veterans who need care the best possible care they can get.

I also thank for his leadership the Secretary of the VA, Robert Wilkie, who is also a native North Carolinian. Out of 17 Federal agencies, he has taken the Department of Veterans Affairs organization, which was ranked 17th as the preferred place to work, to the top 5, and its satisfaction rating among veterans today is over 90 percent. I would put what they are doing up against any of the best healthcare systems in the private sector.

We have a lot of work to do, and I want all of the veterans to know that we are going to honor their service by doing our work here in the Senate of continuing to do better by them.

I also want to talk about the fact that it is Military Family Appreciation Month. I think the real silent heroes out there are the spouses and the family members who are left behind when you are deployed or are in training. We have to continue to make progress for military families. Many people may not appreciate what it is like if you are in a career as a spouse and are being moved from station to station every couple of years or how difficult it is to get a job. For many certified positions, it can take a year or more for you to get a job in another State, and by that time, you are already planning for another deployment. We have made a lot of progress in this area, but we have much more to do.

On a special note, I want to talk to the military families who are in military housing on our installations across the world, particularly to the folks down at Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune.

We are not done with making sure that you have the best, safest, cleanest housing that you can possibly have. We have made a lot of progress in this Congress, but we have a lot of work to do.

So I make a commitment to every servicemember and every veteran: As long as I am in the U.S. Senate, we are going to work to continue to repay that debt. We are looking for your feedback, and we are looking for your input so that we can do right by you.

To all of the veterans and all of the military families, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you have done and for all that you continue to do.

On a final note, to those of the veterans service organizations, with whom I work closely on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, thank you for your continued service. You have served our Nation in the armed services, and you continue to serve by helping veterans and helping to be a voice up here in Congress.

To the veterans and military families, God bless you, and thank you for your service.

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