NEW BILL INTRODUCED - H.R. 3121

[Linda]

Brandon, jsloan and vedersj thank you all for your support...feel free to introduce yourselves at Camp Toccoa/Bootcamp

[kronos251]

Hello, first time poster, long time admirer of BoB

AWESOME NEWS! Here's a lot of hoping and praying everything pushes through SOON

Godspeed.
Kris from Manila, Philippines

[LMB]

There is no change in status. The bill is still in the Subcommittee on Military Personnel.

[csnow]

Has there been any new news of this Bill? Is there anyway we can track it's progress; or lack thereof, from a website? I appreciate your time.

[LMB]

Apologies for the delay in responding. I just today had a short break.

The bill is still in the Subcommittee on Military Personnel of the U.S. House of Representatives. It has yet to be voted out of the House Armed Services Committee to be sent to the House floor for a vote.

You can track the status by putting HR 3121 into the search bar from the following site:

http://thomas.loc.gov/home/c111query.html

We encourage all to write to their Representatives requesting support for the bill -- especially if the Representative is a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

[lefty]

Thanks for the update.... and your relentless tracking of the new bill


lefty

[LMB]

Unfortunately, there is no change to report. The bill is still with the Subcommittee on Military Personnel of the House Armed Services Committee.

[GySgtMJones]

LMB,

Is there anything we can do right now, that we haven’t done already, to push this along and get some action being done on this Bill?

[LMB]

Letters from constituents to the members of the House Armed Services Committee, particularly those who are on the Subcommittee on Military Personnel.

Linda has posted sample letters elsewhere.

Democrats
Republicans

Chairwoman Susan A. Davis, California
Ranking Member Joe Wilson, South Carolina

Vic Snyder, Arkansas
Walter B. Jones, North Carolina

Loretta Sanchez, California
John Kline, Minnesota

Madeleine Bordallo, Guam
Thomas J. Rooney, Florida

Patrick J. Murphy, Pennsylvania
Mary Fallin, Oklahoma

Hank Johnson, Georgia
John Fleming, Louisiana

Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire

David Loebsack, Iowa

Niki Tsongas, Massachusetts

[GySgtMJones]

Yes,

I have sent letters to all the politicians who will listen to me. And I continue doing so until they take action on this.

Sadly, only the politicians who could gain a vote from you will even talk to you.

And the real letdown is that I am not in the districts that Chairwoman Susan A. Davis, California or Loretta Sanchez, California are from. So they returned my letters to them with a form letter instructing me to contact the representative from my own district.

Anything else I can do?

[LMB]

If you know of anyone who does live in those districts, ask them to write.

Send a letter to the Subcommittee on Military Personnel of the Armed Services Committee, not to any particular representative.

To the recommended text posted by Linda, add that the public petition in support of the Medal of Honor now has "X" number of signatures, that the sponsor, Rep. Holden, has a copy of the petition list (from 2007) and you will soon be sending him an updated copy of the petition.

We can't hound Rep. Holden, who is certainly in favor of getting the bill out of committee and to the floor for a vote. In recent years, however, these committees have moved on the Medal of Honor recommendations coming from the Pentagon and (understandably) those from the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[GySgtMJones]

If you know of anyone who does live in those districts, ask them to write.

Sadly, I know of no one who resides in those Districts.

Send a letter to the Subcommittee on Military Personnel of the Armed Services Committee, not to any particular representative.

To whom would I address this letter? Should I address it to, say, “Chairperson, Subcommittee on Military Personnel of the Armed Services Committee”? I have never had a reason to send letters to Elected Officials or Government Committees before now, so I have no idea how to approach this and be “politically correct”. The letters I sent to my representatives were easy because Linda was nice and did all the “work” for me to provide a nice “form” letter I could use.

The closest thing I can see which Linda refers to is the address of : “Please send additional emails, messages, faxes, and letters to the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.). to make HR 3121 a priority!”

Yet, you are advising to address it to the Subcommittee on Military Personnel of the Armed Services Committee. Any enlightenment you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

To the recommended text posted by Linda, add that the public petition in support of the Medal of Honor now has "X" number of signatures, that the sponsor, Rep. Holden, has a copy of the petition list (from 2007) and you will soon be sending him an updated copy of the petition.

Which recommended text would you recommend to use? Under the “Letter writing campaign (draft letters + do's & don't's)” Linda has given us 5 different drafts which we can chose from to use. To me they appear all to be directed more towards the individual’s representatives, and not necessarily to any committees. Which would you suggest?

I will have to hold off a bit longer in regards to saying how many signatures are currently on the Petition until I have finished cleaning it up. Currently there are 33,431 names shown on the on-line Petition. However, after cleaning the duplicate names out, the offensive entries, and the perverted sexual spams, that number is reduced significantly. Barry had cleaned well over 1,000 names from the Petition. At the current time, my cleaned copy has 26,399 names out of what appears on the Petition as 27,829 names. That is a loss of 1,430 entries.

I am pushing all the spare time I can to cleaning the Petition as quickly as possible for use. And it takes about one hour to clean one page of 100 entries. But I am giving it all I have, want to get it ready as soon as possible. But in view of the loss on entries which we have experienced so far, I am hesitant to state any actual amount that will be correct. Unless I can use an approximation, say, “Over 30,000 signatures have been collected”. Maybe something like that? What do you think? I feel extremely certain that the Petition will not drop down below that number, even with all the garbage removed.

By the way, how was the original Petition submitted to Rep. Holden? As an email attachment? On a data CD as a DOC.file? Or as a hard copy paper file? I will send it in whatever form is desired. I am a bit curious about the paper file though, as the file is already 851 pages in length at font 8, so I am certain the file will run over 1,000 pages in length. If it is to be a paper file, should I send it by UPS or something like that? I don’t know how the U.S. Postal System would like that package, large and heavy.

We can't hound Rep. Holden, who is certainly in favor of getting the bill out of committee and to the floor for a vote. In recent years, however, these committees have moved on the Medal of Honor recommendations coming from the Pentagon and (understandably) those from the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I would never think to hound Rep. Holden. From all I have seen here, if it wasn’t for Rep. Holden, we would probably not even be having this discussion right now!

Yes, I think the main hurdle to overcome is in the Committee. We have seen many persons receive the Medal of Honor recently for actions from many, many years ago. I feel strongly that once we get this approved by the Committee, then it will be just a short time before the Major receives his long overdue Medal of Honor.

I ask a lot of questions, yes, I know that. I am but a simple Marine who has no experience dealing with Governmental Agencies or Officials. I am totally ignorant when it comes to matters such as this. I want to do this the right way, to be a positive impact on this cause, not become a negative one by “screwing” this up “royally”! I am also a person who believes in being extremely precise and exact. I am always governed by the “Attention to detail”. When I do a task, I want to know exactly what I am required to do, down to the tiniest detail. That way it will be done correctly the first time.

So, I ask for all guidance which can be given to me to get this successfully accomplished and soon.

I thank you and all who can guide me in this!

For the Major!

Semper Fidelis

Gunny Mike

Back to cleaning names.........

[LMB]

Forum members and supporters may certainly send letters of support to their Congressional Representative, the House Armed Services Committee (or its Chairman, Rep. Ike Skelton), and/or the HASC Military Personnel Subcommittee. In addition, there is nothing wrong with also writing to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. There are no hard and fast rules, but individual representatives who are not in leadership positions will generally ignore letters or e-mails that are not from their constituents.

The address for the House Armed Services Committee and its Military Personnel Subcommittee is:

2121 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
FAX (202) 225-9077

Go to www.house.gov for information and links to other Congressional representatives and committees.

Letter #3 posted by Linda is fine for use for the Committees.

"Dear Members of the Subcommittee" or "Dear Rep. Skelton" etc. will work.

You may certainly estimate the number of signatures on the petition.

If you have any further questions, please send a PM and keep this thread for URGENT NEWS!!!

[csnow]

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:h.r.03121:

To whomever can answer this question:

Am I reading the "Last Major Action" correctly concerning Bill H.R. 3121? Nothing has happend since August 3rd of last year? I was just curious as to where it stood. This really isn't urgent news, but I just like to keep up with the progress.

Thank you for your time.

Chris~

Continued...I just got through looking further, it appears that there are 215 bills currently sitting in the "Sub Committee of Military Personnel"...which is where this bill is sitting, so it appears to be a "hurry up and wait" scenario! Geesh!