Department of Defense Appropriatiations Act, 2007

Floor Speech

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2007

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Chairman, I'm informed that the point of order will probably be upheld here, but I would like to make this point before I withdraw the amendment.

Today, all members of the Armed Forces, including those serving in the Guard and Reserves, receive two-and-a-half days of leave time per month, regardless of whether they're deployed in Iraq or back in the U.S. or at their home base.

My amendment would simply credit soldiers one additional day of leave time for every month that they are deployed in a combat zone, and this could be used when they return Stateside. We learned this from speaking to a soldier in particular by e-mail and to soldiers more specifically about it, and realized that with some of the mental health problems which are going on, the extra leave time, not time on standby but actual leave time, would be good as far as our soldiers are concerned, and so decided we wanted to push it.

We tried to do it in the Tauscher bill a couple of days ago, and unfortunately, the Rules Committee did not accept it. And I tried to put it in this Defense appropriations bill, and I realize it might have limitations as far as the point of order is concerned.

But I think it's an important question, and I just wanted to appeal to the chairman and to the ranking member to consider this perhaps in conference, perhaps at some other time, perhaps somebody else can borrow it. I just believe it's something we ought to be thinking about doing for our soldiers who have been called back on a fairly repetitive rotating basis. In my judgment, they would benefit from this extra leave time.

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