Issues - Veterans

"As our thoughts and prayers remain with our brave men and women serving around the world and their families, we must continue to care for and honor the veterans who fought for our freedom and security. In Congress, I am always mindful of the obligation to provide our veterans with quality healthcare, economic opportunities, and retirement security. They deserve no less." – Rep. Holt

Keeping faith with those who have served in our Armed Forces is a sacred national priority. Rep. Holt believes that America has a moral obligation to ensure that veterans receive the health care, disability compensation, readjustment counseling, and job training and placement services that they have earned through their service to our nation. In the summer of 2012, the New Jersey Department of the Veterans of Foreign Wars honored Rep. Holt for his years of work on veteran's issues by naming him their 2012 Legislator of the Year. 

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In this section:

• Preventing Military Suicides
• Expunging the Disgrace at Dover
• Passing the 21st Century GI Bill
• Ending Disabled Veterans Tax

Preventing Military Suicides

Rep. Holt has been deeply concerned about suicide among our veterans and active duty troops – a concern driven in part by a tragedy in New Jersey.  Sergeant Coleman Bean of East Brunswick served two combat tours in Iraq.  In between and after those tours, he sought treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. Yet the help that he so desperately needed never came, and he died by suicide in September of 2008.

Sgt. Bean's tragedy was just one among many.  Before this day is out, 18 more veterans will have taken their own lives.

In December 2011, Congress took a stride toward ending suicide's toll.  It approved $40 million that Rep. Holt had secured to support military suicide prevention efforts, including outreach through TV, print, and new media, as well as direct suicide intervention.  For Fiscal Year 2013, Rep. Holt secured passage in the House of an additional $40 million for this same purpose.

Even now, too many American veterans are suffering the same unbearable trauma that led Sergeant Bean to take his own life.  Rep. Holt's hope is that this new funding will ensure that, as Sergeant Bean's mother Linda recently put it, they and their families will continue to "enjoy the profound and unbroken blessing of ordinary days."

Expunging the Disgrace at Dover

Rep. Holt was contacted in 2011 by a constituent from Frenchtown who learned that not all the remains of her husband who died in an explosion in Iraq had been included in his funeral. Holt subsequently uncovered the disturbing fact that some of his remains had been cremated, mixed with medical waste, and unceremoniously sent to a Virginia landfill.

Rep. Holt wrote to the Secretary of Defense to urge an investigation of the scope of this scandal and to demand changes in the handling of service member remains. He pushed the Department of Defense to move quickly to identify and correct the problems and to fully report them.

Subsequently, Rep. Holt successfully amended the Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act to create a Federal Mortuary Affairs Advisory Commission.  His legislation would require the Commission to examine how the scandals at Dover, Arlington Cemetery and elsewhere occurred and to make recommendations to the President and Congress on how to fix the military mortuary system–from the time a soldier falls in the field to the time he or she is laid to rest.  Rep. Holt's legislation was supported by the American Legion, the Jewish War Veterans, and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. He is working with Senator Menendez to ensure this provision becomes law as soon as possible, as additional, ongoing oversight of the government's treatment of the remains of our fallen is urgently needed.

Passing the 21st Century GI Bill

The original G.I. Bill of 1944 launched millions of families on a course to achieving the American Dream.  However, over time, the educational benefits diminished to the point that they paid only 70 percent of the cost for a public college and 30 percent for a private college education.

In 2008, Rep. Holt helped to pass a strong new G.I. Bill that dramatically increased the educational benefit offered to America's veterans and allowed service members to transfer their G.I. benefits to their spouse or children.  Several new provisions of the bill took effect in October 2011 for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, including providing benefits to cover non-college degree programs, on-the-job and apprenticeship training, flight schools, and correspondence programs. Additionally, active duty members will now receive a stipend for books and supplies, and National Guard members mobilized on or after September 11th, 2001 are now eligible for the post-9/11 G.I. Bill.  Rep. Holt also assisted Rutgers University in securing a VA waiver to allow the university to use VA benefits before requiring state funds to offset veterans' tuition costs and other expenses.

Ending the Disabled Veterans Tax

While some progress has been made in changing the law so that military retirees who receive retired pay can also receive disability pay, there is more work to do.  To ensure that military retirees receive 100% of both their retired pay and disability pay, Rep. Holt has co-sponsored the Disabled Veterans Tax Termination Act, which would permit veterans with a service-connected disability of less than 50 percent to claim both retired pay and disability compensation.