Sheila Jackson Lee: “I want to express my appreciation to Mr. Young, who is the chairman of the subcommittee, and to Mr. Dicks, who is the…”

“I want to express my appreciation to Mr. Young, who is the chairman of the subcommittee, and to Mr. Dicks, who is the ranking member, for their long years of service. To my colleagues, good news today: the announcement came that the President of the United States would send the same sympathy letter to families of those soldiers who committed suicide in battle as of those who had fallen in different ways in battle. The reason that is good news is, in a sentence I am reminded of, the President and his office indicated that they did not want to stigmatize the mental health concerns of our soldiers. I want to pay tribute to the Defense appropriations committee for its work on post-traumatic stress disorder and to make note of our late friend, Congressman John Murtha, who worked with Houston on establishing a new post-traumatic stress disorder center. I am grateful for that because, as in all of our States, many of us are facing a large numbers of returning soldiers from both Iraq and Afghanistan. So I ask for my amendment to be supported to increase research and development funding for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, which affects our men and women who serve selflessly and bravely in our Nation's armed services. My amendment would increase research and development funds for PTSD and TBI by $500,000. It will be offset by reducing general operations and maintenance and activities of the Department of Defense.…”