I WANT TO take a moment to tell you about a new bill that I recently introduced in the U.S. Senate that would stop disabled vets from losing retirement benefits.

I have visited military hospitals and have seen first-hand the terrible injuries our Nevada troops are suffering—injuries that are forcing brave men and women who meant to make the military a career into premature retirement. That means they lose their retirement pay, and I think that's unfair. We shouldn't penalize veterans because they were injured serving their country. They fought to protect us, and now we need to take care of them.

Right now, troops who get injured before they complete 20 years of service are forced out of the military without any retirement pay. My bill, called the "Combat-Related Special Compensation Act of 2006," would give pro-rated retirement benefits to the military personnel who are forced into early retirement because of their combat injuries.
Some of these veterans have served 10 or 15 years, and had planned to keep serving until retirement. Now they can't. These people serve because they love America. They made sacrifices to protect our freedom. It's not their fault they got injured. If we force them into early retirement, we should at least give them the retirement benefits they've earned. It's the right thing to do.

The "Combat-Related Special Compensation Act of 2006" is part of my ongoing efforts to end this outdated policy, known as the ban on concurrent receipt. The policy prevents disabled veterans from collecting both their military retirement pay and disability compensation. Retired disabled veterans must deduct the amount of any disability compensation they receive—dollar for dollar—from their retirement pay.

I have been working for years to end the ban on concurrent receipt.

In 2003, Congress passed my bill to allow concurrent receipt for some veterans, although with a ten-year waiting period.

In 2004, I proposed legislation to eliminate that ten-year period and also to provide full concurrent receipt of military and disability pay to veterans with 100 percent service-related disability.

Last year, Congress passed my amendment to expand concurrent receipt to cover America's most severely disabled veterans, and to implement the new policy immediately instead of phasing it in over a decade. However, that legislation will not be enacted until 2009.

Ending the ban on concurrent receipt remains one of my highest priorities. I am proud of the progress we've made so far, but we need to keep chipping away at the unfair policy in place now. I am committed to that goal 100-percent. We need to protect disabled combat veterans from losing their retirement benefits.