Supporting our Veterans

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, this week we honor the men and women who serve our Nation with honor and their families who also sacrifice--whom we do not remember enough--who sacrifice so much for the servicemembers they love and for all of us in our country.

The sacrifice of our veterans demands that we fulfill the promises we have made. This body is always willing to spend more dollars in armaments and on weapons, but when it comes time to fulfill our obligations to veterans, too many in this body are not generous enough.

I am the only Ohioan ever to serve a full term on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. I take that duty very seriously. I know the Presiding Officer, Senator Tillis from North Carolina, does too. That means working to end the VA backlog. It means putting a better system in place. It means ensuring that our veterans have a roof over their heads and a place to call home. It means providing veterans with health care and the educational opportunities they deserve and which they have earned.

Too many veterans face mental health challenges that can end in tragedy. More than 8,000 veterans each year take their own lives--154 a week, 22 a day. Hundreds of thousands of veterans struggle with invisible injuries. Nearly 300,000 have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress, and 300,000 have faced traumatic brain injuries--all because of the service they gave to us.

Earlier this year we passed the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act. It is a good start yet not enough. We need to make sure that when servicemembers return home, they have the educational and the employment opportunities they need, not only to survive but to thrive.

The GI bill's educational benefits are critical, but veterans, unfortunately, have a limited amount of time before their GI benefits expire. In crowded colleges--whether in North Carolina, Oklahoma or Ohio--general education requirements and prerequisites often fill up quickly. Many colleges and universities in my State offer priority registration to veterans. All of our colleges and universities need to follow Ohio's lead. That is why I worked with Senator Tillis, the Presiding Officer, on legislation to ensure that all veterans and servicemembers and their qualifying dependents can use their GI benefits to their full potential and be guaranteed priority registration.

The Senator from North Carolina and I also introduced the Fry Scholarship Enhancement Act, which would expand eligibility for the VA's Yellow Ribbon Program to help students avoid out-of-pocket tuition and fees for programs that cost more than the allowance set by the post-9/11 GI bill.

Sadly, for too many veterans, they are far from the goal where they should be. They struggle just to find a place to call home.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, some 50,000 veterans were homeless during a survey conducted on a single night in January 2014. That is 50,000 too many. It is a disgrace that after serving our country with honor, thousands of veterans are left without a roof over their heads.

Earlier this month I visited the Joseph House in Cincinnati, where Nathan Pelletier and his team of dedicated staff and volunteers provide addiction treatment and traditional housing.

A group of us meeting there, mostly veterans who are homeless or were homeless, listened to Britton Carter, who was formerly homeless. He completed his treatment program in the Joseph House. He now works as a case manager there helping other struggling veterans.

Veterans such as Mr. Carter have served our country with honor. We owe them support, and we owe them counseling when they return home. That is why I joined my colleagues in introducing the Veteran Housing Stability Act of 2015, which would make meaningful improvements to services for homeless veterans that would give veterans more access to permanent housing opportunities.

We know in the Veterans' Affairs Committee a number of things. We know that the unemployment rate of veterans is generally higher than society's unemployment rate. We know that veterans' suicide rate is higher than society's suicide rate. We know that veterans' drug addiction is higher than society's drug addiction rate. We know that veterans have suffered from PTSD and traumatic brain injury in numbers much higher than the general population. That is why we owe them so much. We in this body so rarely think about the cost of war.

We, as I said earlier, are willing to send more money to buy more weapons, to spend more money in armaments. We are not so generous when it comes time to take care of our veterans.

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