Health Care for Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans

Floor Speech

HEALTH CARE FOR IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN WAR VETERANS -- (House of Representatives - October 15, 2007)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I think it's important for the President of the United States to pay attention to the over 100,000 Iraqi and Afghani veterans that are coming back to our country, U.S. citizens who have been wounded. 100,000.

This House passed a bill that increases spending in the Department of Veterans Affairs by 18 percent, the largest increase in American history, which is deserved because we have injured soldiers coming back to us who are not being treated. That bill is log jammed in the Senate. I invite the President of the United States to call over to the leadership in the Senate to say he's going to sign that bill and to move that bill this week.

Yesterday, I was out welcoming in an official ceremony the 983rd Combat Engineer Unit Heavy from the State of Ohio. It's a Reserve unit, over 1,000 soldiers who have been deployed to the theater in Iraq who came home, and this was the official welcome home ceremony to present them their warrior citizen flags and medals. It was a moving ceremony honoring their valor and their service to our country.

I had the opportunity at that ceremony to talk to Mrs. Tiffany Eckhart, the widow of Andy Eckhart, who lost his life in Iraq. And he was on his second deployment to Iraq.

She said several things to me. She said, Marcy, my husband never should have been deployed a second time because he had been injured in his first deployment. He had had a head injury, and she said, I want you to go back to Washington this week and tell the Congress and tell the Secretary of Defense and tell the President of the United States that every soldier who has been in combat in Iraq or in Afghanistan if they have had a head injury, before they are sent back again, they should be examined to make sure that there's nothing wrong, that there isn't a problem that affects their vision or in some way affects their functioning, which she claims is the reason for his death.

Now, if we are rotating people through so quickly and we aren't paying attention to the soldiers who are in theatre, particularly the Guard and Reserve, which never get the attention that they should, shame on us. Shame on us.

The impact of these head injuries on our soldiers is serious, and with the explosions that are occurring, we are losing 80 percent of those who have lost their lives, 80 percent of our soldiers have died from IEDs, which are explosive devices, or from sniper shots to the back of the head, 80 percent. So the individual soldier is receiving these wounds largely in the head area, or if they have heard the explosive devices going off, they have had damage sometimes inside the head that you can't see. You can't see. So the Department of Defense should have a policy not to redeploy unless that soldier is reexamined.

It's almost like having shaking baby syndrome is what Mrs. Eckhart said to me, where after a baby has been damaged, unless they are really examined, sometimes you can't tell that there has been brain damage. It's no different for our soldiers. She begged me to change the policy of the Department of Defense in this regard.

In addition to that, I met so many soldiers who had come home because the unit returned in 2005, who had other symptoms that are not being treated. There is PTSD inside this particular battalion, but are doctors easily available to them? No. And are they available locally? No. If they are forced to travel somewhere because they are Reserve members, they have got to take off work. Guess what. They have to lose their pay because they have to go to get taken care of at a hospital 2, 3, 4 hours away from them. That's wrong. Those services should be provided to our soldiers when they are ill, particularly if they have something like PTSD, which demands such careful attention from a neuropsychiatrist and the distribution of medicines and the kind of therapeutic care that is important for them.

Another soldier came up to me. He had ripped cartilage and tendons in his knee. He has been home for over 1 1/2 years. He said, Congresswoman, why didn't the DOD operate on me while I was in theater? He said, When I came home, they discharged me. He said, You know what? I came home. I am now in the Reserve. For me to get this taken care of, I will be off work for week. He said, I can't afford to do that. He said, Why didn't they tell me? Why didn't they tell me to take care of it while I was under the umbrella of the Department of Defense?

The PTSD and neurological disorders just in that unit, now that people have been home, while we were at the ceremony, several F-16 jets which are based near a school overhead, you could just see the reaction of the soldiers.

I would invite the President of the United States to urge the Senate of the United States to move that legislation so that we can move the resources we need into the Department of Veterans Affairs and take care of the veterans of this country, over 100,000 of whom have come home now who are injured.

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