 Congressman Tom Rooney agreed to be interviewed for this supplement to a bipartisan congressional dialogue held at CSIS on March 11th. The event, co-hosted by CSIS and the Association of the United States Army, a USA, focused on mental health issues in the military. Congressman Rooney was unable to attend the event because of last-minute scheduling changes. What follows is a brief opening statement by Congressman Rooney, followed by answers to the questions asked at the event. Yeah, I just want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to your group. I'm sorry that I missed the presentation earlier with Congressman McMahon. It was regrettable and I do wish I could have made it there, but I think that it's important that we highlight the fact that Congressman McMahon's office and our office have worked tirelessly over the last year on a couple bills, which you're aware of, but also on how we can continue to move forward and improve. As many of you know, this Congress has been very partisan and there's been a lot of heated debates up here on some very large issues. However, what you may or may not see during the course of the last year are things that Democrats and Republicans work together on, such as the mental health for our returning warfighters. Such as the cases myself and Mike have done over the last year and will continue to do so hopefully for years to come. This idea really started on my end with my brother returning from Fallujah in Najaf in Iraq and as well as some of the people that I served with and my wife served with were a dual military in the Army serving at Fort Hood, Texas and then up at West Point, New York. Some of the friends that we made over the course of our years on active duty that had been deployed and come back, sewing some serious and then some not so serious signs of mental health issues that quite frankly were not being addressed with those standards that we were using. They were available in some regards, but what really hit me more than anything were the spouses of some of the returning warfighters trying to kind of work the VA system and the health care system and the military and DOD as well to try to get their spouses the mental health care that they needed and I just thought that it would be great if we could streamline that so when they get home we're giving them the utmost care that they deserve and so I heard that Mike McMahon was also very interested in helping the returning warfighters with regard to post-traumatic stress disorder and severe terminal brain injury and I went to his office and we talked about it and we decided to work together and we've been working together on it ever since and we actually have a second bill which would help reimburse non-DOD or VA specialist with TRICARE for people that don't necessarily live near a VA but still need that help. So with that those bills the TRICARE bill is HR3839 and our original bill is 1308 which would mandate screenings after a certain period of time for returning warfighters to make sure that instead of the way certain systems were used where there would maybe just a form or a check card for when people were getting on a flight home it was one of a multitude of questions whether or not they were feeling stress or mental health issues you know sometimes on the way home isn't the best time to ask that question or on a check card isn't the best way to ask that question so this would allow people to redeploy, re-assimilate with their families and be at home for a period of time before they come in and be able to actually talk about it. We do recognize that there are stigmas with regard to seeking help for mental health. We do recognize that there is a fear that it may hurt promotional statuses so we are taking all those into account when we move forward with these things and hopefully we can do so in such a way that those things do not come into play at all. So with that being said I want to thank CSIS again, I want to thank Congressman McMahan, I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak again and I look forward to working with my colleagues especially Mike in the future to continue to do whatever we can do moving forward so thank you very much. If TRICARE, the health care program serving active duty service members, becomes as open as some private insurance for the provision of mental health services what impact will that have on the TRICARE budget? Well it will have an impact certainly, I mean there is no doubt that this is going to have an effect, how much of an effect, how much would be cost savings or increased cost is yet to be determined because quite frankly sometimes when you don't address certain issues it could be more expensive down the road than if you nipped it in the bud earlier. I mean certainly we are seeing that with some older veterans who if they had been given the care that we are talking about now as soon as they redeployed home maybe they wouldn't need the more detailed care that they are requesting now if they are even getting it at all. So I think that it would be probably an increase in a budget but in my opinion we have an obligation if we send kids to war to take care of them when they get back. I'm a fiscal conservative but I also believe that defense of our nation and taking care of those that defend us is a priority. You can have, talk about low taxes and low spending with socioeconomic issues all day long but when it comes to defense in my opinion it's a whole different ball game and if it increases the budget in my opinion so be it. Does the mandate for mental health screenings in the bill you introduced apply to civilians or only to members of the armed forces? We recognize having been to Iraq and Afghanistan myself we recognize Mike and myself, Congressman McMahon and myself that a lot of these civilians that you are talking about are former military. If some of the things that we are trying to do or some of the things that we are thinking about trying to do when it comes to veterans they would be hopefully incorporated into this program, overall program but right now it's not but at the same time we cannot forget that those guys have families, wives and children or husbands and children too. A lot of them used to wear the uniform a lot of them have the same fears and are American citizens just like us and we are putting them in harm's way so I am very sensitive towards those people and I feel a sense of obligation to them too. We haven't gotten there yet but I am sure that Mike and myself will continue to work on that. I will say though that one of the motivating factors for both of us has been the amount of suicides that we have seen escalate over the last couple of years especially recently and especially with civilians that used to be in uniform. That has I think given everybody a wake up call that it's not just when you are in the service it's when you leave that you know we still have an obligation to these people just because they are not in uniform anymore doesn't mean they are cut loose in my opinion so and especially if they are still willing to serve even as a private contractor or whatever a civilian we would like to do more and I guarantee you that Congressman McMahon and myself and others will continue to figure out ways to include them. How does the size of a volunteer force and the repeat redeployments and limited dwell time caused by a smaller military impact the mental health of our military? With regard to the repeat deployments and certainly with some of the National Guard units state that the states have had to send out time and time again and repeat deployments you know on a larger scale we probably need to increase the size of the force again that comes into a budget issue but for me it's not a question. On a smaller scale more focused on mental health if we have a good mental health system in place maybe those repeat deployments will be something that is easier to accomplish and would be beneficial to the overall mission generally speaking. Especially with Marine Corps you know who deploy and redeploy all the time I think that having preliminary mental health screening which our bills don't call for but then redeployment screenings as well wouldn't be a bad idea and something we'd be willing to think about in the future you know one of the things that I've thought about in a lot of things that I've read and a lot of the people that I serve with we talked to you know would there be a benefit in screening people sort of as they enlist as kind of part of in processing you know however complex might not be a bad idea and maybe that would help us with what you're getting at with the deployments and redeployments. General Stroop of AUSA mentioned in his introduction a delayed response time for when symptoms of stress related mental illnesses occur. What is being done to assist service members after they return from battle? Well I think that I think that as we said we've done we did a lot of research on on on this before we drafted the first bill and we worked very hard our offices worked very hard to see what we could get you know the most results from and that's why we kind of saw that maybe waiting a period of months before you have your first assessment after you redeploy would show the most effect if any and so over the long term though I do think that if you get this early then you know the mental health specialist would say that you would be able to work with somebody on your health issue and be able to just like any physical problem be able to rehabilitate yourself so that down the road it's much more minimized take for in contrast somebody that came back from Vietnam and never got any mental health screening and now so many years later I think that that issue is now compounded and much bigger of an issue and probably much harder to rehabilitate so you know once again as I said before if you get this early from the people that I've talked to in the research that I've done it's it'll be much just on a financial level later down the road less less expensive how do you shift military culture to accept that mental health issues are not a weakness rather issues that should be dealt with and addressed within the unit yeah that that's the hardest part of all this and that's the most pushback we've gotten from members of the military is the stigma or the perception with somebody being diagnosed with some level of post-traumatic stress disorder severe brain injury or just having mental health issues at all you can have mental health issues that are very minor when you return or very severe you know if you have minor issues it may not affect anything that you do it just might you know be something that you deal with personally but I think that we are very as I said in my opening we're very sensitive to the fact that you know people do not want this on their you know officer evaluation records or promotional have it affect their promotional status in a way so we wanted to be confidential we wanted to be something that soldiers and marines and airmen and sailors can do in a way that does not affect their promotional status and you know it's it's understandable that somebody would not want that stigma but at the same time we've had a lot of we've had an unacceptable amount of suicides in the last couple years and I don't think that anybody would disagree with the fact that if we can do anything to save one of those people from going that extra you know length to take their own life that it should be done and we have a responsibility as people that put them in that situation to do that so I understand I want to say clearly that I am sensitive to the stigma issue and I would be very hesitant to put something forward that labeled somebody as having a mental health issue publicly but I do think that we can do this in a confidential private way and I will continue to strive to make sure that we do that. Are we giving due diligence to the psychological and mental health of members of the military upon their entrance into service? As I said in one of the previous answers I think that that's something that we should look at in the future whether or not we have kind of as part of in processing a look at people's mental makeup I think that they do a little bit of that now to make sure that you know you could serve at all but I think that certainly because what you want to be able to do is say that this is where you were when you enlisted and this is where you were after your first or second redeployment you know things have changed or things haven't changed or things have changed but generally speaking you're you know good to go or whatever the case may be but I think that down the road an initial in processing screening is not a bad idea.