Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chair, and still I rise. I thank the gentleman for yielding 1 minute and I thank those members of the Rules Committee who made this moment possible.

Mr. Chair, today, I rise to call attention to a 159-year-old injustice. Milton Holland was given a battlefield promotion. When he received that promotion, it was not validated later on when it was discovered that he was a person of African ancestry.

The battlefield promotion he was given was denied because of who he was. He was a member of the Union Army, by the way. He received the Medal of Honor but could not maintain the promotion that he received for the valor he displayed in battle.

This injustice will be corrected today. Every person who votes will be bending the arc of the moral universe toward justice for Milton Holland.

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