Food for Wounded Troops Bill # H.R.2998

[Jerry D]

Food for Wounded Troops
Bill # H.R.2998

Original Sponsor:
C.W. Bill Young (R-FL 10th)

Cosponsor Total: 205
(last sponsor added 09/25/2003)
96 Democrats
109 Republicans
About This Legislation:
Congress can move fast when it wants. Only one day after a federal judge voided the Federal Trade Commission's "do-not-call" list designed to stop telemarketing calls from interrupting your dinner, the U.S. House passed legislation to keep the "do-not-call" list.

Appearing on C-SPAN, Joseph Anselmo a reporter for Congressional Quarterly said, "It's the fastest I've ever seen the House act." According to the Associated Press, Representative Ed Markey said, "This legislation got to the House floor faster than a consumer can hang up on a telemarketer at dinnertime."

But while members of the U.S. House were ranting on the House floor about the need to keep telemarketers from interrupting everyone's dinner, wounded U.S. troops recovering in hospitals were being forced to pay for their dinners.

Congressman Bill Young (R-Florida) in a September 4th letter to his House colleagues wrote, "Upon being discharged from the hospital, our enlisted personnel and officers are served with a bill to pay for their 'subsistence' while in the hospital. The current daily rate for these charges is $8.10.

"We learned about this from our visits with Staff Sargeant William L. Murwin, who spent 26 days in the hospital recovering from injuries incurred in Iraq. Sergeant Murwin is a reservist in the Marine Corps who was injured when a 10-year-old Iraqi dropped a
grenade in the HUMVEE he was driving. As a result of the explosion, Sergeant Murwin is a partial amputee, having lost a large part of his foot.

"Upon his discharge July 18th to return home to Nevada and his job as a sheriff's deputy, Sergeant Murwin was handed a bill from the hospital for $210.60 to pay for his food and subsistence. Beverely [Congressman Young's wife] and I paid this bill for Sergeant Murwin because we consider it an injustice to ask those who have served us so courageously in Afghanistan and Iraq to pay for their food while hospitalized because of their service."

To correct this injustice, Congressman Young introduced H.R. 2998 that would permanently stop charging troops injured in combat for food while hospitalized.

Congress is now considering President Bush's request to spend billions of dollars to reconstruct Iraq. We think Congress should first feed America's wounded troops.

Congress can move quickly when it wants. It rushed overnight new
legislation to keep telemarketers from interrupting dinnertime.
Congress should act with the same speed to provide injured troops
recovering in hospitals with dinner.

Urge your U.S. representative to support H.R. 2998 and to work
for its immediate passage.

[Gimpy]

I've already sent my Congressman a letter about this yesterday.

Can you believe this shit!

[BLUEHAWK]

Letters written, very extremely insistent letters...

[Jerry D]

nods yup!, good to hear folks.