STATEMENT OF HONORABLE CORRINE BROWN
RANKING DEMOCRATIC MEMBER
COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS
FLOOR STATEMENT FOR DEBATE ON
<span style="style" new="New" roman","="roman","" ,""=",""">MAY 30, 2012
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Thank you Mr. Speaker.
I rise today, as the House of Representatives returns from Memorial Day events around the country, to honor our Nation’s servicemembers and their families.
On behalf of a grateful nation, I want to thank our servicemen and women for their sacrifices in defense of the freedoms we all hold so dear.
As the President Obama has said, it is important to follow these words with deeds. That we must do what we can for the veterans of past, present and future conflicts.
I am pleased to have been a Member of Congress in 2009 when with a Democratic President and Democratic House and Democratic passed the largest budget in the history of the Department of Veterans Affairs. In addition, we made sure that the VA was not subject to the whims of government shutdown, and subject the Health budget of the VA to Advanced Appropriations, removing the worry for our veterans that their healthcare would be available.
I am looking forward to the ceremony to be held at the end of June to honor the Montford Point Marines. It is necessary to honor all of America’s war heroes’ selfless service and sacrifice, and in particular, those who served at Montford Point, who are about to be officially recognized as a rich legacy of our Marine Corps. They answered our nation's call at a time when our society was deeply divided along racial lines.
As our service members continue to deploy we need to ensure we are doing everything that needs to be done to help the families. One item that has often been overlooked is the care of our servicemembers’ children when they are deployed.
HR 4201 would amend the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to help protect the child custody rights of servicemembers being deployed overseas.
This bill would protect a servicemembers’ custodial rights by requiring that temporary custody orders based solely on the servicemember’s deployment will be exactly that – temporary, and that when the servicemember returns the custody order in effect before deployment will be reinstated.
This bill provides important safeguards and peace-of-mind to our servicemembers facing overseas deployment, and puts the interest of children first.
This bill was passed by the House last Congress and we should do so again.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker; I reserve the balance of my time.