National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment on behalf of our Nation's servicemembers. This amendment is verbatim to a bill that the gentleman from Ohio, Congressman Tim Ryan, and I introduced earlier this year, H.R. 1465, the Medical Evaluation Parity for Servicemembers Act of 2015. This amendment will help the military identify behavioral health issues and improve suicide prevention by instituting a mental health assessment for all incoming military recruits.

A recent Army study confirmed the need to address mental health issues in a timely manner, finding that ``nearly one in five Army soldiers enter the service with a psychiatric disorder, and nearly half of all soldiers who tried suicide first attempted it before enlisting.''

The amendment is respective of servicemembers' privacy, and the mental evaluation cannot be used in determining promotion. This amendment will simply ensure that we have a better baseline for the mental health of a servicemember during his or her military career.

These brave men and women put their lives on the line every day in the service of our Nation, and it is our responsibility to offer everything in our power to guarantee they return home safely, both physically and mentally.

This amendment has strong bipartisan support and the support of a large number of military and mental health advocacy groups which understand our troops deserve as much support as we can provide them.

Mr. Chairman, 108 of our military took their own lives between October and December of 2014 by suicide. Let's stop this tragedy.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support this amendment and the underlying bill.

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