Senator Also Visits Soldier’s Best Friend and Luke Air Force Base
PHOENIX – Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) spent the day meeting with veterans, service members, and community leaders in the Phoenix area to discuss his ongoing efforts to expand mental health resources, strengthen military infrastructure, and pass the bipartisan Major Richard Star Act.
Senator Gallego began the morning at Soldier’s Best Friend in Peoria, where he toured the facility and reviewed the organization’s “rescue-to-service” training process. The program pairs veterans living with PTSD and traumatic brain injuries with rescued service dogs, providing healing and rehabilitation.
Later, the Senator visited Luke Air Force Base, the primary training center for the F-35A Lightning II. Senator Gallego recently secured $45 million in the NDAA for a new child development center at Luke AFB to support the 6,800 active-duty airmen and their families stationed there.
Senator Gallego then hosted a community conversation at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 720 with VetsForward, Worker Power, and UNITE HERE Local 11 to advocate for the passage of the Major Richard Star Act. The bill, which the Senator has long supported, would provide combat-injured veteran retirees their full benefits.
Senator Gallego spoke about his plans to force a vote to add the Major Richard Star Act to Republicans’ reconciliation budget bill that is currently moving through Congress.
“Fact, we’re going to war and spending a lot of money there. We can find the billion dollars to take care of veterans. It’s bipartisan. It has huge support, and there’s no reason why it’s become political to the point where it’s getting stopped,” said Senator Gallego. “They’re not giving us a billion dollars for these veterans. We’re giving a billion dollars for the ballroom, something that was supposed to pay by private money. So it tells you what the priorities of this administration is.”
Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) blocked the advancement of the bill most recently in March. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week pledged support for the legislation, to which Senator Gallego said today, “Hopefully, he sticks to that. That would solve this problem right away.”
Senator Gallego spoke about the current situation that more than 50,000 combat-injured military retirees face.
“You may end up making a decision: ‘do I take my retirement benefit or do I take my VA benefit?’ And that’s not the situation you want to put these men and women in, especially because a lot of them are going to be dealing with injuries that are going to be very expensive for them to deal with the rest of their lives,” he said.
As a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee and a marine combat veteran, Senator Gallego has been advocating for veterans to receive the benefits they have earned. He successfully led the fight against the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) proposed cuts at the VA, forcing the department to scale back reductions that would have impacted veteran care. He also introduced the Innovative Therapies Centers of Excellence Act to expand research into treatments for PTSD and depression, and recently backed the COLA Act to ensure VA benefits keep pace with inflation.