Sense of Congress

It is the sense of Congress that— (1) every member of the Armed Forces who dies or is wounded in hostilities is entitled to be counted, by name and in number, in the casualty records of the operation in which the member served; (2) the United States Government owes to the fallen, to their families, and to history a complete, honest, and permanent accounting of every member of the Armed Forces killed or wounded in the service of the Nation, and no administrative reclassification may be permitted to obscure the human cost of war; (3) accurate and complete casualty statistics are essential to the accountability of the executive branch to the American people and to the exercise by Congress of its constitutional powers to declare war, to raise and support Armies, to provide and maintain a Navy, and to appropriate funds; (4) no reporting category, accounting methodology, or assertion that hostilities have ceased may be used to conceal from Congress or the American people the human cost of the military operations of the United States; and (5) no false assertion that hostilities have ceased nor arbitrary termination of the designation of an active contingency operation may be used to deny servicemembers, their families, or Department of Defense civilian employees the benefits and awards they are due for their support to active military operations.