Steve Stivers: “I thank the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. David P. Roe) for yielding time. This bill is, indeed, a blending of a bill…”

“I thank the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. David P. Roe) for yielding time. This bill is, indeed, a blending of a bill that Governor DeSantis had in the last Congress and a bill we had in the last Congress, and we now have 321 cosponsors on this bill. Mr. Speaker, as you know, our servicemembers returning from war sometimes have invisible wounds. I served as a battalion commander in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and soldiers under my command came back with post-traumatic stress and, indeed, some even with traumatic brain injury. All too often, we see the links between military service and mental health conditions, including post-traumatic stress, as well as traumatic brain injury and even suicide. Mr. Speaker, we lose 20 veterans a day to suicide. Congress has to work to address that situation. Mental health and the suicide epidemic that are facing veterans can't be solved with a single solution, but it is important we look at this comprehensively and come up with as many building blocks as we can to address this crisis. That is why I introduced the PAWS for Veterans Therapy Act, which is based on clinical evidence from Kaiser Permanente and Purdue University.…”