[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 91 (Thursday, May 25, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3199-S3200]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              MEMORIAL DAY

  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, this weekend we will mark the beginning of 
the Memorial Day remembrances that we do every year. Memorial Day, of 
course, is on Monday, but many activities will begin even today and 
tomorrow to honor those who have died in the defense of our country. 
These men and women had families, they had dreams for the future, and 
they had their whole lives ahead of them. But they did something 
extraordinary.
  I remember that a few years ago I had the opportunity to be at the 
American cemetery in Normandy. At the end of the tour of that cemetery, 
the guide had us sit down on a ledge with the English Channel to our 
back and those 8,000 graves in front of us that we had just looked at 
and had talked about the sacrifices made. Then he flipped open his 
computer and, at that exact same spot, on the 20th anniversary of the 
D-day, General Eisenhower--former President Eisenhower--in 1964 was 
talking to Walter Cronkite. He said to Walter Cronkite: You know, 
Walter, my son John graduated from West Point on D-day, and over the 
last 20 years, I have watched him and his wife raise their family and 
have the experiences they have had, and, he said, many times I have 
thought about these young men and the life they didn't get to lead 
because of what they were asked to do.
  Particularly, you had the person sitting there 20 years later who 
ultimately was the person who asked them to do what they were asked to 
do, and you understand that that is the kind of decision he thought 
about. It is the kind of sacrifice we should think about as we think 
about those who didn't get to pursue their dreams and didn't get to see 
the family they had grown up with or have the family they would have 
liked to have had because they laid down their lives so that we could 
take care of our families, so that we could realize our dreams, so that 
we could enjoy the freedoms that our Nation is truly blessed with and 
that make us truly extraordinary in our belief and our defense of 
freedom, not only for ourselves but for people everywhere.
  We are grateful for all that these people have done, and this is a 
time of year that we particularly set aside to honor those fallen 
heroes--the soldiers, the sailors, the airmen, the marines, the people 
in the National Guard and the Coast Guard and the Reserve--called up 
and losing their lives in that cause.
  Also, it is good for us to remember those who served and who were 
willing to make that sacrifice, if necessary, and often have their own 
burdens they carry from their service. Maybe that burden was just 
simply losing those years when others were already at a civilian job 
that they would only be able to go to later.
  I am honored to represent nearly 500,000 Missouri veterans. As a 
member of the bipartisan Congressional Veterans Jobs Caucus, I am 
committed to helping our veterans find good-paying jobs as civilians. 
We took an important step in that direction recently when President 
Trump signed the Honoring Investment in Recruiting and Employing 
American Military Veterans Act, or the HIRE Vets Act. I believe it may 
have been the first bill the Senate passed. I was pleased to be the 
principal sponsor of that bill, and it was the underlying bill on the 
continuing resolution that funded the government on April 17, and so it 
became law.
  It addresses the fact that transferring from military to civilian 
life represents a number of challenges. It represents challenges for 
our servicemembers, and that transfer can be a difficult personal 
decision to make, but it is also difficult to navigate the civilian 
employment market and to find out who is recognizing the skills and the 
lessons learned by veterans and who may not be quite at the forefront 
of that.
  The HIRE Vets Act helps to facilitate that transition by providing 
veterans more information on employers that offer benefits and 
opportunities geared toward hiring veterans. Many employers say they 
are veteran friendly, and many employers are veteran friendly, but 
there has really been no standard that anyone could look at to 
determine whether that was true or not--no standard for what employers 
aspire to do at their workplace or no standard that future veterans and 
employees can seek out.
  This would be much like a LEED standard on energy efficiency. If you 
have that standard on your building or at your workplace, people know 
exactly what that means. This bill asks the Department of Labor to 
establish a similar kind of standard for those who are the best, for 
those who are nearly as good, and for those who are almost as good as 
them to see what people are doing--a tiered recognition of employers to 
see what they are doing to welcome, encourage, recognize, and promote 
veterans.
  Some of the criteria that could go into that evaluation would include 
the percentage of new hires at your company who are veterans, the 
percentage of the overall workforce that is made up of veterans, what 
type of training and leadership activities are made available that are 
designed to maximize what a veteran uniquely has learned as a veteran, 
and what other benefits and resources are offered--things such as 
tuition assistance, things that encourage veterans to go ahead and get 
one other category of training or more.
  Creating a national standard will help veterans narrow down their 
employment options and focus their job search efforts on the companies 
that recognize the value of their military service and what that value 
will bring to their new workplace, and also companies that will provide 
a long-term career path where those skills are used and appreciated. So 
this is a step in the right direction.
  I have talked to the Secretary of Labor just this week, who said they 
intend to have this plan up and running by the end of this year, 
quicker than they were required to do but certainly not quicker than we 
hoped they would be able to do. So this is going to be a priority at 
the office of the Secretary of Labor, as veterans should be a priority 
for our society.
  Today, we have the most powerful military in the world, but we really 
need to recognize--and I think we do recognize--that behind that 
military stands supporting families. Families are the backbone of the 
military today. They provide the kind of support that servicemembers 
need. They provide the encouragement for the difficult challenges of 
going from one post to another and one job to another. I think there 
are ways we can recognize those families and what they do in a better 
way.
  I was able this year again to introduce the Military Family Stability 
Act. Military families have changed over the years. Our military stays 
in service longer. The skill levels they acquire are more valuable than 
might have been the case in the past. As the military gets more 
technical, having invested the time and training on someone in service 
is a more significant investment than it may have been at another time. 
Our policies that affect military families haven't kept pace with our 
investment in people who are serving.
  According to a study by the Military Officers Association of America, 
90 percent of military spouses who are women are either unemployed or 
underemployed. More than half of those people cite concerns about their 
spouse's service as a deterrent to their prospective employers: having 
to leave quickly without notice, not getting the ability to transfer 
from one State to another, or when their training or licensing has 
happened in the State they were living in.

  Too often, military spouses have to end up sacrificing their own 
career. I think, in any case, we would understand there is some 
sacrifice here when you are moving from place to place, but there 
doesn't need to be a needless sacrifice.
  So the Military Family Stability Act would allow families to address 
a problem. I consistently hear from military spouses and people serving 
in the military who talk about the challenges

[[Page S3200]]

their spouses face in Missouri and across the Nation.
  An ill-timed move takes a child needlessly out of school a month 
early or makes a child start a school year a month late or prevents a 
husband or wife from being able to commit to a 9-month teaching 
contract or start a graduate program on time because the move they had 
anticipated happening is delayed. I have had people come and testify on 
exactly those two specific things and others that made a big difference 
in their family and their family's enthusiasm about the service they 
were jointly giving to the country.
  For many families, if you make that move early, the family has to 
absorb the move. I think there is a better way to do this. I think we 
can increase stability in military families. This bill enables the 
servicemember or family to either move early or remain at their current 
duty station for up to 6 months while the spouse or the serving parent 
begins a new assignment. Now, for that to happen--the spouse moving 
early to the new assignment--the servicemember moving early or staying 
a little bit later has to absorb their single serviceperson expenses 
for staying. But as to the much more significant expenses, the family 
goes at a reasonable time when it is better for the family to go.
  I am proud that this bill has garnered widespread support from 
numerous military family and veteran service organizations, including 
the National Military Family Association, the Military Officers 
Association of America, and others.
  I am also pleased that at this moment, as we reintroduce the bill, 
Senator Gillibrand and I, Secretary Mattis--a former marine and 
decorated General, one of our most distinguished officers, who has seen 
the impact on families as he served--staff members at the Department of 
Defense, Senator McCain, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, 
and his staff have been working with us to iron out the details on a 
bill that they all support and agree will help our military men and 
women and their families.
  So the HIRE Vets Act and the Military Family Stability Act are 
bipartisan. They are commonsense measures that really get us closer to 
our goal of ensuring that we provide the support for servicemembers and 
veterans who have defended us.
  We will also continue our oversight on the Veterans' Administration 
to ensure that those who have served receive more choices and that 
their healthcare benefits and other benefits they have earned are 
benefits that they will receive. There is really no reason they can't 
receive many of those benefits where they would prefer to go as opposed 
to where the government has previously thought were the only options. 
Veterans' choice is important. They chose to serve. We can now give 
them more choice than we have in the past to decide what works for them 
and their families.
  So as we approach Memorial Day, I know that all the Members of the 
Senate are appreciative of those who served and the families who served 
alongside them. I look forward not only to honoring veterans between 
now and next Monday but between next Monday and a year from next 
Monday, continuing to do those things we can to be sure that those who 
serve and those who have served are fully appreciated for their 
service.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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