Political Quotes

“I thank our outstanding chairman. Madam Speaker, this helmet has been on my shelf in my office for 9 years. It has the signatures of 58 military servicemembers who have been sexually assaulted. It was a daily reminder to me that we had so much work to do. The clarion call of them, and so many others, hundreds of thousands of other servicemembers who have been sexually assaulted in the military has finally been heard. We cannot erase their anguish, their pain, their abuse, their scarring, but we can, through this NDAA, change it for future servicemembers. Make no mistake, Madam Speaker, this is a seismic reform of the military justice system as it relates to sexual assault, as it relates to murder, as it relates to kidnapping. It is, in fact, creating a separate, distinct office which will be populated by those who are professional lawyers skilled in sexual assault, and investigators who will do the investigations. They will make the decisions as to whether or not these cases move forward. Beyond that, we make a crime of sexual harassment. We don't go far enough because, unfortunately, it is still in the chain of command. Mind you, 100,000 servicemembers are sexually harassed every year. Sexual harassment begets sexual assault. We have more work to do there. Beyond that, in this particular measure we have a 2.7 percent increase for our servicemembers. We also provide up to 12 weeks of parental leave.…”