Thank you for holding this very important hearing and for the opportunity to discuss my bill, H.R. 271, the Creating Options for Veterans' Expedited Recovery (COVER) Act.

I urge all of my colleagues to join me in supporting this draft bill and, with that, I yield back.

the idea behind this bill is we need to give the veteran the choice because not one size fits all with regard to the therapy.

We need to do more for our true American heroes. We have that responsibility. We have that duty.

Recent data has shown that every day in this country--an estimated 18-22 Veterans take their own lives. This statistic answers the question I posed earlier. It is obvious more needs to be done.

More needs to be done in my opinion.

Instead of presuming to know what is best for veterans, we should just ask the veteran.

We need to attack it on both the supply and the demand end.

If I could have just one moment, I want to mention very briefly our prosecutor from Wayne County in the Detroit area.

It seems that he had a powerful jammer in his SUV, powerful enough to jam local law enforcement radios and calls to 911.

We as a country and more importantly the states have a role to play in insisting that institutions provide positive outcomes for veterans.

I also want to highlight a piece of legislation I recently joined Congressman Lois Frankel and Congressman Gus Bilirakis in introducing, the Veteran Education Empowerment Act.