Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

By Mr. FEINGOLD:

S. 2427. A bill to amend title 10, United States Code, to improve transition assistance provided for members of the armed forces being discharged, release from active duty, or retired, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation that will enhance and strengthen transition services that are provided to our military personnel.

This past weekend, people around our country honored our military personnel by marking Armed Forces Day. That day was even more poignant this year as we recognize the service and sacrifice of the thousands of brave men and women who are currently in harm's way in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere around the globe. These men and women serve with distinction and honor, and we owe them our heartfelt gratitude.

We also owe them our best effort to ensure that they receive the benefits to which their service in our Armed Forces has entitled them. I have heard time and again from military personnel and veterans who are frustrated with the system by which they apply for benefits or appeal claims for benefits. I have long been concerned that tens of thousands of our veterans are unaware of Federal health care and other benefits for which they may be eligible, and I have undertaken numerous legislative and oversight efforts to ensure that the Department of Veterans Affairs makes outreach to our veterans and their families a priority. Our brave veterans have earned these benefits, and VA outreach regarding health care and other benefits is especially important as we welcome home a new generation of veterans who are serving in Iraq and in the fight against terrorism. Our veterans and their families have made great personal sacrifices to protect our freedoms. We owe them a great debt of gratitude. Making sure that our veterans know about the benefits that they have earned is an important first step in starting to repay this debt.

While we should do more to support our veterans, we must also ensure that the men and women who are currently serving in our Armed Forces receive adequate pay and benefits, as well as services that help them to make the transition from active duty to civilian life. I am concerned that we are not doing enough to support our men and women in uniform as they prepare to retire or otherwise separate from the service or, in the case of members of our National Guard and Reserve, to demobilize from active duty assignments and return to their civilian lives while staying in the military or preparing to separate from the military. We must ensure that their service and sacrifice, which is much lauded during times of conflict, is not forgotten once the battles have ended and our troops have come home.

My bill, the Veterans Enhanced Transition Services Act (VETS Act), will help to ensure that all military personnel have access to the same transition services as they prepare to leave the military to reenter civilian life, or, in the case of members of the National Guard and Reserve, as they prepare to demobilize from active duty assignments and return to their civilian lives and jobs or education while remaining in the military.

I have heard from a number of Wisconsinites and military and veterans service organizations that our men and women in uniform do not all have access to the same transition counseling and medical services as they are demobilizing from service in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. I have long been concerned about reports of uneven provision of services from base to base and from service to service. All of our men and women in uniform have pledged to serve our country, and all of them, at the very least, deserve to have access to the same services in return.

My bill will help to ensure that all military personnel receive the same services by making a number of improvements to the existing Transition Assistance Program/Disabled Transition Assistance Program (TAP/DTAP) and to the Benefits Delivery at Discharge program, by improving the process by which military personnel who are being demobilized or discharged receive medical examinations and mental health assessments, and by ensuring that military and veterans service organizations and state departments of veterans affairs are able to play an active role in assisting military personnel with the difficult decisions that are often involved in the process of discharging or demobilizing.

Under current law, the Department of Defense, together with the Departments of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Labor, provide pre-separation counseling for military personnel who are preparing to leave the service. This counseling provides service members with valuable information about benefits that they have earned through their service to our country such as education benefits through the GI Bill and health care and other benefits through the VA. Personnel also learn about programs such as Troops to Teachers and have access to employment assistance for themselves and, where appropriate, their spouses.

My bill would ensure that members of demobilizing National Guard and Reserve personnel are able to participate in this important counseling prior to being demobilized. In addition, my bill would require state-based follow-up within 180 of demobilization to give demobilized personnel the opportunity to follow up on any questions or concerns that they may have during a regular unit training period. Currently, most of the responsibility for getting information about benefits and programs falls on the military personnel. The Department of Defense should make every effort to ensure that all members participate in this important program, and that is what my bill would do.

My bill would help to improve the uniformity of services provided to personnel by directing the Secretary of Defense to ensure that consistent Transition Assistance Program/Disabled Transition Assistance Program briefings occur across the services and at all demobilization/discharge locations and to ensure that there are programs that are directed to the specific needs of active duty and National Guard and Reserve personnel as appropriate. It also includes a provision to ensure that personnel who are on the temporary disability retired list and who are being retired or discharged from alternate locations will have access to transition services at a location that is reasonably convenient to them.

In addition, my bill would enhance the information that is presented to members by requiring that pre-separation counseling include the provision of information regarding certification and licensing requirements in civilian occupations and information on identifying military occupations that have civilian counterparts.

In response to concerns I have heard from a number of my constituents, the bill also directs the Secretaries of Defense and Labor to jointly explore ways in which DoD training and certification standards could be coordinated with state laws relating to the training and certification standards for corresponding civilian occupations.

Participation in pre-separation counseling through a TAP/DTAP program is a valuable tool for personnel as they transition back to civilian life. My bill is in no way intended to lengthen the time that military personnel spend away from their families or to provide them with information that is not relevant to their civilian lives or that they otherwise do not need. In order to ensure that this information remains a valuable tool and does not become a burden to demobilizing members of the National Guard and Reserve who experience multiple deployments for active duty assignments, my bill clarifies that participation in the Department of Labor's transitional services employment will not be required if a member has previously participated in the program or if a member will be returning to school or to a job that he or she held before being called to active duty.

My bill would make similar improvements to the joint DoD-VA Benefits Delivery at Discharge program, which assists personnel in applying for VA disability benefits before they are discharged from the military, to cover all discharging military installations and military hospitals to ensure that all personnel with service-connected disabilities have the same opportunity to receive this important service. This very successful program has helped to cut the red tape and to speed the processing time for many veterans who are entitled to VA disability benefits.

I have long been concerned about the immediate and long-term health effects that military deployments have on our men and women in uniform. I regret that, too often, the burden of responsibility for proving that a condition is related to military service falls on the personnel themselves. Our men and women in uniform deserve the benefit of the doubt, and should not have to fight the Department of Defense or the VA for benefits that they have earned through their service to our nation.

For example, since coming to the Senate in 1993, I have worked to focus attention on the health effects that are being experienced by military personnel who served in the Persian Gulf War. More than ten years after the end of the Gulf War, we still don't know why so many veterans of that conflict are experiencing medical problems. Of the nearly 700,000 U.S. military personnel who served in the Persian Gulf War in 1990 and 1991, more than 100,000 have suffered from an array of symptoms that have become known as Gulf War Syndrome. Military personnel who are currently deployed to the region face many of the same conditions that existed in the early 1990s. I have repeatedly pressed the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs to work to unlock the mystery of this illness and to study the role that exposure to depleted uranium may play in this condition. We owe it to these personnel to find these answers, and to ensure that those who are currently serving in the Persian Gulf region are adequately protected from the many possible causes of Gulf War Syndrome.

Part of this process is to ensure that the Department of Defense carries out its responsibility to provide post-deployment physicals for military personnel. I am deeply concerned about stories of personnel who are experiencing long delays as they wait for their post-deployment physicals and who end up choosing not to have these important physicals in order to get home to their families that much sooner. I am equally concerned about reports that some personnel who did not receive such a physical-either by their own choice or because such a physical was not available-are now having trouble as they apply for benefits for a service-connected condition.

For these reasons, my bill would require that the Department of Defense abide by current law and provide post-demobilization physicals to all military personnel, and would prohibit any waiver of these physicals. I firmly believe, as do the military and veterans groups that support my bill, that our men and women in uniform are entitled to a prompt, high quality physical examination as part of the demobilization process. These individuals have voluntarily put themselves into harm's way for our benefit. We should ensure that the Department of Defense makes every effort to determine whether they have experienced-or could experience-any health effects as a result of their service.

In light of concerns raised by many that each service and each installation uses a different process for demobilization physicals, my bill would require the Secretary of Defense to set minimum standards for these important medical examinations and to ensure that these standards are applied uniformly at all installations and by all branches of the Armed Forces.

My bill also would strengthen current law by ensuring that these medical examinations also include a mental health screening and assessment. Our men and women in uniform serve in difficult circumstances far from home, and too many of them witness or experience violence and horrific situations that most of us cannot even begin to imagine. These men and women, many of whom are just out of high school or college when they sign up, may suffer long-term mental and physical fallout from their experiences and may feel reluctant to seek counseling or other assistance to deal with their experiences.

My bill would improve mental health services for demobilizing military personnel by requiring that the content and standards for the mental health screening and assessment that are developed by the Secretary include content and standards for screening acute and delayed onset post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and, specifically, questions to identify all stressors experienced by military personnel that have the potential to lead to PTSD. Some Wisconsinites have told me that they are concerned that the multiple deployments of our National Guard and Reserve could lead to chronic PTSD, which could have its roots in an experience from a previous deployment and which could come to the surface by a triggering event that is experienced on a current deployment. The same is true for full-time military personnel who have served in a variety of places over their careers.

We can and should do more to ensure that the mental health of our men and women in uniform is a top priority, and that the stigma that is too often attached to seeking assistance is ended. One step in this process is to ensure that personnel who have symptoms of PTSD and related illnesses have access to appropriate clinical services, either through DoD or through the VA, which is required in my bill.

My legislation also requires the Secretaries of Defense and Veterans Affairs to report to Congress on planning for identification, intervention, and treatment of personnel with PTSD and related conditions and for appropriate training of DoD, military, and VA personnel with respect to PTSD and related conditions.

My bill will also ensure that the DoD and the VA take appropriate actions to ensure that personnel receive appropriate follow-up care for any other physical or mental conditions that are found-or suspected to have been found-as a result of a post-deployment medical examination, including care and treatment at a DoD or VA facility and any other care, treatment, or services that are required.

In addition, in order to ensure that all military personnel who are eligible for medical benefits for the VA learn about and receive them, my bill requires that, as part of the demobilization process, assistance be provided to eligible members to enroll in the VA health care system.

My bill also requires that the medical records of all separating service members be transmitted to the VA and that DoD and the VA conduct a study on how to improve coordination and cooperation between the two Departments to support the provision of benefits to members and veterans, including: compatibility of health care filing systems, consistency of claims forms, consistency of medical examination forms, and creating shared electronic database with appropriate privacy protections.

My bill would also make improvements to the DoD demobilization and discharge processes by ensuring that members of military and veterans service organizations (MSOs and VSOs) are able to counsel personnel on options for benefits and other important questions. The demobilization and discharge process presents our service members with a sometimes confusing and often overwhelming amount of information and paperwork that must be digested and sometimes signed in a very short period of time. My bill would authorize a "veteran to veteran" counseling program that will give military personnel the opportunity to speak with fellow veterans who have been through this process and who may be able to offer important advice about benefits and other choices that military personnel have to make.

Under current law, the Secretary of Defense may make use of the services provided by MSOs and VSOs as part of the transition process. But these groups tell me that they are not always allowed access to transition briefings that are conducted for our personnel. In order to help facilitate the new veteran-to-veteran program, my bill would require the Secretary to ensure that representatives of MSOs, VSOs, and state departments of veterans affairs are invited to participate in all TAP/DTAP and BDD programs. In addition, my bill requires that these dedicated veterans, who give so much of their time and of themselves to serving their fellow veterans and their families, are able to gain access to military installations, military hospitals, and VA hospitals in order to provide this important service. By and large, Mr. President, these groups are able to speak with our military personnel at hospitals and other facilities. But I am disturbed by reports that some of these groups were having a hard time gaining access to these facilities in order to visit with our troops. For that reason, I have included this access requirement in my bill.

I want to stress that my bill in no way requires military personnel to speak with members of MSOs or VSOs if they do not wish to do so. It merely ensures that our men and women in uniform have this option.

Finally, my bill would authorize the Secretary of Defense to create a program to help military personnel get college credit for applicable military training. The Wisconsin State Department of Veterans Affairs has such a program, called the Academic Credit for Military Experience (ACME) program. The National Veterans Training Institute cites ACME as a national model for helping veterans to obtain college credit for training that they received while in the military. Such a program would help our veterans to maximize their GI Bill benefits, to avoid taking classes that repeat their military training, and to earn their degrees that much faster.

I am pleased that this legislation is supported by a wide range of groups that are dedicated to serving our men and women in uniform and veterans and their families. These groups include: the American Legion, the Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States; the Paralyzed Veterans of America; the Reserve Officers Association; the Veterans of Foreign Wars; the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs, the Wisconsin National Guard; the American Legion, Department of Wisconsin; Disabled American Veterans, Department of Wisconsin; the Wisconsin Paralyzed Veterans of America; the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Department of Wisconsin; and the Wisconsin State Council, Vietnam Veterans of America.

I ask unanimous consent that the full text of my bill be printed in the RECORD.