National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. NUNN of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, as a nearly 20-year combat veteran and head of counterintelligence for cybersecurity, I know firsthand the millions of threats that are leveraged against our country on a daily basis.

As we look to strengthen our security with this bill offered by the chair and the amendments going forward, I thank those who have worked so diligently on our joint effort to create a National Digital Reserve Corps to buttress our country against this threat.

Additionally, I will speak about another win for our military, military parents. As both an Air Force officer, Reservist, and National Guard member, we have worked on bipartisan legislation, the Reserve Component Parental Leave Parity Act, that I helped lead with Representative Jeff Jackson from North Carolina.

Our servicemen and -women deserve time with their new children, and this policy will expand parental leave for drilling Reserve and National Guard members to match the leave policies of their Active-Duty members.

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Mr. NUNN of Iowa. Mr. Chair, this is a big, bipartisan win to improve the lives of our members who are serving, including myself as a parent of foster children.

Unfortunately, as a result of a backroom deal, we were not able to serve those who needed help from suicide prevention. In my home State of Iowa, we have almost four times the number of individuals who take their life after coming back from combat.

We will not stop fighting for this, and what we can't include in this amendment we will move forward with the chairman to make sure we are able to protect those who have served overseas and take their own life when coming back.

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