Nelson: Defense Bill Addresses Military Suicides, Health Care, Operation Airlift, Benchmarks, Military Voting

Press Release

Today, Nebraska's Senator Ben Nelson applauded last evening's passage of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 by the full Senate. The legislation addresses key personnel concerns and his call for benchmarks to assess progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"I'm pleased to see it pass because it contains over 60 issues that I worked on as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee," said Nelson. "They all aim to improve the health care and services for our men and women in uniform and for their families, all of whom are sacrificing so much for Americans these days."

As chairman of the Senate Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee, Nelson held hearings to spotlight major issues such as military suicides, travel for stranded soldiers, health benefits, strains on military families and aid for wounded warriors. Nelson worked to make sure these issues were addressed in the final National Defense Authorization Act. In addition, the legislation contains language of a Nelson-sponsored bill that makes it easier for service members serving overseas to vote in U.S. federal elections.

"As the chairman of the Personnel Subcommittee, I work every day to honor the sacrifices made by our soldiers and their families," said Nelson. "In our hearings we discovered problems in health care, suicide prevention, and mental health treatment for our soldiers. This bill fixes problems we uncovered and meets the needs of service members and their families."

Two particular measures introduced by Nelson earlier this year, TRICARE Gray and Operation Airlift, were included in the legislation. The budget-neutral TRICARE gray measure ensures nearly 225,226 eligible retirees nationwide have the opportunity to purchase coverage under the military's TRICARE health care program. Operation Airlift, Nelson's other stand-alone legislation, arose in response to complications Nebraska service members experienced in December 2007. Forty-eight members of the 110th Medical Battalion based in Lincoln became stranded at Fort Lewis, Washington, when training was suspended and the base was shut down for the holidays. Military rules prohibited using military funds to pay for their travel back to Nebraska until training resumed. Operation Airlift allows the Secretary of Defense to use Department of Defense funds to pay for travel if a reserve or guard member is more than 300 miles from home and is placed on leave for 5 days or more because of training suspensions or staffing issues.

The legislation also includes Nelson-sponsored language to solve obstacles faced by military and overseas voters. The provision harnesses technology to speed up the voting process by allowing registration and ballot requests to be sent electronically, ensures that military and overseas voters have time to vote by requiring ballots to be sent out 45 days before the election, allows blank ballots to be sent electronically, and provides some flexibility to states who cannot meet the 45-day deadline, as long as they come up with an alternative plan to ensure time to vote. The legislation also requires the Department of Defense to play a more significant role in facilitating voter registration and in collecting and returning voted ballots in cooperation with the Postal Service.

"We owe it to our men and women in uniform to protect their right to vote," said Nelson. "And for military and overseas voters, that right is only as good as their ability to cast a ballot and have it counted. I firmly believe this legislation will make a huge impact in empowering our military and overseas voters to have their votes counted, no matter where they find themselves on Election Day."

The bill, among its many benefits to military members and their families, authorizes a 3.4 percent across-the-board pay raise, 0.5 percent above the budget request. It also increased the overall size of the force. The bill also does the following:

• Requires the Secretary of Defense to develop and implement a plan by September 30, 2013 to increase the number of military and civilian behavioral health personnel, and to consider the feasibility of additional officer and enlisted specialties as behavioral health counselors.

• To begin to address the capability gaps identified in mental health care, the bill authorizes the service secretaries to add up to 25 officers each year as students at accredited schools of psychology for training leading to the degree of Doctor of Psychology in clinical psychology.

• Requires person-to-person mental health assessments at designated intervals for service members deployed in connection with contingency operations.

• Requires the Secretary of Defense to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of military deployment on dependent children of service members, and a review of the mental health care and counseling services available to military children.

• Expresses the Sense of the Senate on various aspects of State implementation of the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children and encourages all remaining states to enact the measure.

• Requires the Secretary of Defense to establish a task force to assess the effectiveness of the policies and programs to assist and support the care, management and transition of recovering wounded, ill, and injured service members.

• Authorizes travel and transportation allowances for reserve component service members on active duty for more than 30 days to travel from a temporary duty station to their permanent duty station and back again when training at the temporary duty station is suspended for five days or more.

• Directs the Secretary of Defense to report on the status of completion of various issues identified by wounded service members and their families and to report on the capabilities for electronic exchange of medical data between DOD and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

In addition to measures with regard to personnel, Senator Nelson continued to advocate for measures of progress for the new strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. His measure urges the Administration to establish measures of progress for its new strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan and to provide reports to Congress every six months. It urges the Administration to provide an assessment of each measure of progress by:

1. Setting forth the measure of progress being evaluated;
2. Providing data used to evaluate the measure of progress;
3. Providing an evaluation of the performance of the particular measure of progress and;
4. Providing a comprehensive assessment of how the performance of the particular measure of progress hinders or enhances the overall progress toward achieving the U.S. strategic objectives in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"The American people and the men and women serving in Afghanistan and Pakistan deserve to have a set of objective measures for the U.S. strategy in that region, so we can ensure it is the best strategy to achieve stability and success," said Nelson.

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