[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19597]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    SUPPORTING THE MENTAL HEALTH NEEDS OF OUR SOLDIERS AND VETERANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, late last month President 
Barack Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act of 
2015, otherwise known as the NDAA.
  Included in the legislation was language directing the United States 
Department of Defense to study a mental health assessment for all 
incoming military recruits. This assessment would then be used as a 
baseline throughout the service careers of our servicemen and -women.
  This was included in the Medical Evaluation Parity for 
Servicemembers, or MEPS, Act, which I introduced earlier this year. 
Now, I believe this assessment is essential in addressing the suicide 
epidemic which has affected our military members and veterans over the 
past several years.
  Mr. Speaker, when it comes to suicide within the ranks of our 
American heroes, commissioned studies have been implemented by the 
Department of Defense in the past.
  We have found that, for over 60 percent of those individuals who 
attempt or commit suicide while serving in the military, it was not 
their first attempt. Their first attempt was before they joined the 
military. This is about pre-existing conditions that have failed to 
have been recognized.
  Mr. Speaker, if you are like me and you assume that it is what people 
see on the battlefield--I have been to Afghanistan. I have been to Iraq 
in the past. It is the horrors of war that drive people, largely, to 
suicide.
  But these studies, Mr. Speaker, have found that the large majority of 
those individuals who attempt or commit suicide while in the military 
never saw deployment. They were not in combat situations. Again, it 
speaks to pre-existing conditions that have not been adequately 
identified and addressed. This is a matter that really has been 
thoroughly examined in recent years.
  So while I am happy that it is in the National Defense Authorization 
Act, I urge the Pentagon to act quickly to take steps to better assess 
the mental health of our servicemen and -women at the time of 
enlistment with this commonsense, baseline evaluation.
  These heroes deserve all the information that we can provide in order 
to make their lives a bit easier.

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