WASHINGTON – Congressman Vern Buchanan today announced that the U.S. House unanimously passed three of his amendments to the FY24 defense spending bill.
“These three proposals will help ensure the safety of America’s service members and improve military readiness and recruitment issues,” said Buchanan. “I’m pleased to see the House pass my amendments with broad bipartisan support and will work to see them enacted into law. We need to do everything we can to protect our brave service members and encourage the enlistment of future soldiers to ensure the U.S. military remains the world’s preeminent fighting force.”
The first proposal would dedicate $3 million of the Army Operations and Maintenance budget to ensuring foreign army bases have properly stocked ambulances and MedEvac helicopters.
The second proposal would provide $1 million defense-wide to combat future military training accidents and research ways to prevent them.
Both of these provisions are aimed at reforming current military training procedures and improving emergency response after Buchanan’s constituent, Army Specialist Panipinto, died when the M2A3 Bradley Fighting Vehicle he was driving overturned during a road-test in 2019 at Camp Humphreys in South Korea.
Numerous safety and training failures contributed to Panipinto’s death, including, a lack of medical services on base and significant delays in medical response to the scene of the accident. According to the unit investigation, Camp Humphreys did not have a military ambulance available to quickly transport SPC Panipinto to a medical facility for emergency medical treatment and a civilian ambulance that responded to the scene of the accident lacked critical life-saving medical supplies. Additional failures included one MedEvac helicopter getting lost en route and another which could not even start in the first place.
The final proposal would provide $1 million to the Army Operations and Management budget to boost the Future Soldier Prep Course program. The program was established at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in August 2022 to help those wishing to enter basic training overcome academic and physical barriers to service. The program is offered to individuals wanting to enlist in the active-duty Army, Army Reserves and National Guard.
According to a study from the Department of Defense, a staggering 80 percent of Americans between the ages of 17 to 24 are unfit for military service due to being overweight and other physical and mental health issues.
As of the end of August 2023, the program boasted a 95 percent success rate, with 10,260 recruits attending the prep course and moving onto basic training. These are soldiers who would have otherwise been ineligible for basic training. The program has also been expanded to Fort Moore, Georgia.
In Fiscal Year 2022, the Army enlisted about 45,000 new soldiers, falling 15,000 soldiers short of its 60,000-soldier recruitment goal.
Earlier this year, Buchanan had five proposals included in the House-passed version of the FY24 NDAA, which aimed to assist survivors of domestic abuse, increase troop access to mental health care, prevent military training accidents and combat prescription drug abuse and veteran overdoses.
Buchanan also had a series of sweeping military training reforms included in the FY22 NDAA that required the Pentagon to implement more realistic training practices, develop stricter enforcement standards and ensure better oversight to prevent future military training accidents and deaths.
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