ROA’s commitment to relentlessly representing readiness on Capitol Hill has recaptured the attention of lawmakers and staff serving the House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committees.
After submitting its draft Delivering Reservist Integration and Veterans Education (DRIVE) Act to committee staff earlier this month, ROA was invited to provide in-person testimony at a hearing scheduled for next Tuesday, March 20, at 10:30 a.m. EST and for the 2025 joint-Veterans Affairs Committee hearing (date TBD).
ROA was also asked to submit a written statement for the record for this year’s joint-Committee hearing, which will be published by March 28.
ROA has accepted each invitation to testify and submit our views on issues specific to retirees and veterans of the reserve components and their families.
“ROA thanks the leadership, members, and staff of the House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committees for their trust in our ability to represent reserve issues and positively influence the policy process,” said ROA’s executive director, retired Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey E. Phillips.
“All too often, military and veterans’ law and policy are developed without an understanding of the distinctions between reserve and active duty service. The members of the Reserve and National Guard invariably lose out. And so, too, their families. ROA’s revitalization has recaptured interest in issues impacting reserve components members past and present and their families.
ROA looks forward to sustaining this attention to bring even more improvements to the lives of citizen-warriors and their families.”
ROA has also increased awareness of reserve component issues with other congressional committee members and staff, including those on armed services and appropriations.
On March 14, for example, ROA submitted a statement for the record for the Senate Committee on Finance urging support for restoring $28 million in FY 2025 funding for the USPHS Ready Reserve Corps. Without this funding, the RRC program that ROA fought to establish via the CARES Act will be eliminated.
“The USPHS RRC program, endorsed by 12 former and acting Surgeons General, is part of a substantial modernization effort to enhance the USPHS’ capabilities and support the medical readiness of its uniformed services counterparts,” executive director Phillips wrote in ROA’s statement.
“As such, ROA urges your support for rapidly replenishing the response capabilities of the UPSHS Commissioned Corps and Total Force medical corps by restoring the USPHS RRC program with $28 million in funding for FY 2025 and codifying S.2297, the Parity for Public Health Service Ready Reserve Act, in public law.”