A little over a month after leaving Iraq, Ryan Conklin was in Washington D.C., meeting face-to-face with U.S. Senators, like Senator Max Baucus of Montana (at right, with Ryan), speaking about the needs of veterans. Ryan was part of a team from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) to explain the organization's legislative priorities to members of Congress. It's a campaign that the IAVA calls "Storm The Hill 2010".Senator Baucus is chairman of the important Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax matters. His help is needed to pass tax credits for businesses that hire veterans. This is a vital issue to the IAVA because from 2006 to 2009, the unemployment rate among male veterans ages 18-24 increased by 11.5 percentage points to 21.7%. Among female veterans of the same age, the unemployment rate increased by 7.5 percentage points to 20 percent.
One of the areas that Senator Baucus has already been working for veterans is the establishment of mandatory mental health screenings. The specific legislation, which is modeled after a program currently used by the Montana National Guard, requires the military to provide a live screening for all military personnel before they deploy to combat as well as no later than six, twelve and twenty four months after their return.
It must be noted that Senator Baucus had a hand in passing the abomination that is the Senate version of health care "reform", but hopefully he can make up a little for that by doing something that instead helps Americans, like getting the IAVA's priorities passed through the U.S. Senate.
