a. AUSA News – “Should buying and selling Purple Heart medals be legal?”
Rep. Paul Cook recently introduced legislation that would end the buying and selling of Purple Hearts.
b. AUSA Five Things – “Does the public have a positive attitude about today’s military?”
AUSA Five Things: A Weekly Tip Sheet for AUSA Members, dated December 19, 2016: “Attitudes Changing on Service.”
“Retired Col. Jeanne J. Blaes, president of the Arizona Territorial Chapter of the Association of the U.S. Army, said she’s glad attitudes have changed about problems faced by soldiers and veterans. ‘I don’t believe the military is trying to sweep anything under the rug these days,’ said Blaes, a former Arizona Army National Guard health services materiel officer and an Arizona Veterans Hall of Fame inductee. ‘We did that in Vietnam, and there’s not a desire to do that again. It’s not a negative to be aware, it’s a positive.’
What to watch: Blaes was part of a panel discussion tied to the screening of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. The movie about soldiers returning to civilian life is prompting renewed attention on what it is like to return from combat.”
c. AUSA Moderator – “Will more veterans in Congress make a difference?”
“The U.S. Army will be well-represented in Congress in January when the new legislative session convenes. More than half of the veterans serving in the House of Representatives and one-third of the veterans in the Senate served in the Army, a new analysis shows.
Twenty-six percent of incoming freshmen in the House are military veterans, ‘a much higher share than in recent freshman classes,’ said Seth Lynn, executive director of the nonprofit Veterans Campaign, which did the analysis. Veterans made up only 17 percent of House freshmen in the 113th Congress and 20 percent in the 114th Congress.”
d. AUSA Moderator – “What is Ready Force X?”
“The chief of the Army Reserve said Monday he wants to stand up a package of forces capable of mobilizing and deploying into a major contingency operation much faster than traditional Reserve units. ‘We are calling it Ready Force X; we are still trying to figure out what Ready Force X is going to look like, what's in it and what war plans inform that requirement,’ Lt. Gen. Charles Luckey, chief of the Army Reserve and commanding general, U.S. Army Reserve Command, told a group of defense reporters in Washington, D.C.”