Madison Cawthorn: “I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I will say that I am proud to be a cosponsor on his bill. I think it is far…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I will say that I am proud to be a cosponsor on his bill. I think it is far past time that Congress start taking the mental health requirements, necessities, and needs of our veterans' community more seriously. Not only does this mean just sending more money to it, it means thinking outside of the box; and I think that is exactly what the gentleman's bill does. I will tell you, Madam Speaker, when we start thinking about the debt that our Nation owes to this Nation's veterans, we realize that the debt can never truly be repaid. But certainly we can make sure that not 23 servicemembers--veterans--are committing suicide every single day. Certainly we can make sure that the telehealth program within the VA is expanded so that people can have easy mental checkups that won't deem them as someone who is mentally unfit. {time} 1630 Certainly, this means that we can take a proactive manner in making sure that our veterans feel safe and feel as if they can come forward and speak about the mental health issues that they are facing. So many servicemembers are dying. I believe the gentleman from New York remarked earlier that one of our members of this committee said that they actually knew more people who had committed suicide since returning home from the battlefield than had actually died on the battlefield, and that is truly heartbreaking.…”