Chellie Pingree: “First, I want to thank my colleague from Maine, Mr. Michaud, for his time, for his leadership on the Veterans' Affairs…”

“First, I want to thank my colleague from Maine, Mr. Michaud, for his time, for his leadership on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, and for sharing his brave constituent, Ruth Moore, with me. I also want to thank Chairman Miller for his bipartisan work on this bill, as well as subcommittee chair, Mr. Runyan, and Ms. Titus, the ranking member, for their work on this issue as well. Thank you very much. Mr. Speaker, lately it has been hard to escape the news about the crisis of sexual assault in the military. Senior military personnel charged with preventing sexual assault are themselves investigated or arrested for the very same thing. A new Pentagon report showing 26,000 men and women were sexually assaulted in the military last year--up 35 percent. And only about one in 10 of those assaults were reported, and even fewer ended up with a prosecution. In fact, the Pentagon says that every week--every single week--400 sexual assaults go unreported. But even though we've heard much more about this problem lately, in no way is it a new problem. Almost every day I hear from another veteran who is the survivor of sexual assault in the military. Men and women of all ages, from every branch of the service, from every era. I have heard from survivors of sexual assault from World War II, the war in Afghanistan, and every conflict and every era in between.…”