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[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3665 Enrolled Bill (ENR)]

        H.R.3665

                    One Hundred Seventeenth Congress

                                 of the

                        United States of America

                          AT THE SECOND SESSION

           Begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday,
          the third day of January, two thousand and twenty-two

                                 An Act

 
To designate the medical center of the Department of Veterans Affairs in 
  San Diego, California, as the Jennifer Moreno Department of Veterans 
Affairs Medical Center, and to support the designation of a component of 
            such medical center in honor of Kathleen Bruyere.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. FINDINGS.
    Congress finds the following:
        (1) As of January 2021, of 1,255 health care facilities of the 
    Department of Veterans of Affairs, two are named for women 
    veterans.
        (2) From 2002 through 2006, Jennifer Madai Moreno was an active 
    member of the San Diego High School Junior Reserve Officer Training 
    Corps (JROTC), which is a Department of the Army Honor Unit with 
    Distinction, the highest rating by the Army. She was also chosen to 
    be a member of the San Diego Unified School District Brigade Staff. 
    As a high school senior, she rose quickly to become the top junior 
    marksman in California through the Civilian Marksmanship Program.
        (3) Moreno accepted a JROTC scholarship to the University of 
    San Francisco (USF) for Nursing, becoming the first person in her 
    family to go to college. While at USF, she was chosen for 
    Leadership Development Training. She ultimately achieved the 
    highest level of physical fitness in her ROTC unit.
        (4) Following her graduation from USF with a Bachelor of 
    Science degree in Nursing in 2010, Moreno received her commission 
    in the United States Army as a Second Lieutenant Nurse Corps 
    Officer.
        (5) Upon commissioning, Moreno served as a Gold Bar Recruiter 
    from July 2010 to September 2010.
        (6) Moreno was chosen to attend and completed the Basic 
    Airborne Course in Fort Benning, Georgia and Army Medical 
    Department Officer Basic Course at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas.
        (7) Moreno was then assigned to Madigan Army Medical Center, 
    Joint Base Lewis McCord, Washington in January 2011, where she 
    served as a Clinical Staff Nurse on medical-surgical unit. Moreno 
    earned her certification as a Medical Surgical Registered Nurse in 
    February 2011.
        (8) Moreno volunteered for a position with U.S. Army Special 
    Operations Command in 2011. She was selected into the SOC Cultural 
    Support Team program. She was deployed to Afghanistan in June 2013 
    with the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment.
        (9) On October 6, 2013, Moreno was attached to a U.S. Army 
    Ranger unit on a night mission in the Zhari district in Kandahar 
    province to capture a high-value target when four explosive devices 
    were triggered.
        (10) During the last moments of Moreno's life, she reportedly 
    heard a call to help a wounded soldier struck by a blast. Moreno 
    did not hesitate to respond to the call for help. As she made her 
    way to help a fallen soldier, she triggered the fifth explosion, 
    which ended her life.
        (11) Moreno was the first Nurse CST member to die in action. 
    Part of her legacy is the number of young women coming from medical 
    fields seeking out voluntary assignments to join the CST program.
        (12) Moreno was the first combat casualty to be buried at Fort 
    Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego since the post-9/11 
    conflicts began. She received full military honors.
        (13) After graduating from college in 1966, Kathleen Mae 
    Bruyere was accepted into U.S. Navy Officer Candidate School, after 
    which she was assigned as an on-campus Navy recruiting officer in 
    California.
        (14) Bruyere was named to the staff of Rear Admiral Allen Hill 
    in 1975, becoming the first woman to serve as flag secretary to an 
    admiral.
        (15) In January 1976, Bruyere was chosen as one of 12 Women of 
    the Year on the cover of Time Magazine.
        (16) In 1977, Bruyere joined five other women officers who sued 
    the United States Secretary of the Navy and the United States 
    Secretary of Defense over restrictions that prevented women from 
    serving on combat aircraft and ships. This led to the 1948 Women's 
    Armed Services Integration Act being struck down as 
    unconstitutional, overturning a ban on women serving at sea.
        (17) In 1987, as Special Assistant to the Chief of Naval 
    Operations for women's policy, Bruyere helped conduct an 
    examination of the status of Navy women, including career 
    opportunities and complaints of sexism. The study led to 9,000 sea-
    duty and command jobs opening up for women on 24 combatant ships.
        (18) In 1991, Bruyere was assigned as Commanding Officer for 
    the Navy Recruit Training Command at Orlando, Florida. At the time, 
    it was the Navy's only boot camp that included women. Bruyere 
    oversaw the training of 30,000 enlistees, one third of them women.
        (19) In 1994, Bruyere retired from the Navy as a Captain after 
    28 years of service.
        (20) From 2012 until shortly before her death in September 
    2020, Bruyere was an active volunteer at Miramar National Cemetery, 
    devoting almost 4,300 hours to helping visitors locate their loved 
    ones' graves and providing information about veterans' burial 
    benefits.
        (21) Bruyere was buried at Miramar National Cemetery with full 
    military honors.
        (22) In May 2021, a panel of San Diego-area members of the 
    Armed Forces, veterans, and military spouses recommended that the 
    San Diego VA Medical Center be renamed in honor of Jennifer Moreno 
    and an internal space be renamed in honor of Kathleen Bruyere.
SEC. 2. DESIGNATION OF JENNIFER MORENO DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS 
MEDICAL CENTER.
    (a) Designation.--The medical center of the Department of Veterans 
Affairs in San Diego, California, shall after the date of the enactment 
of this Act be known and designated as the Jennifer Moreno Department 
of Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
    (b) Reference.--Any reference in any law, regulation, map, 
document, paper, or other record of the United States to the medical 
center referred to in subsection (a) shall be considered to be a 
reference to the Jennifer Moreno Department of Veterans Affairs Medical 
Center.
SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON DESIGNATION OF MEDICAL CENTER PHYSICAL 
COMPONENT AFTER KATHLEEN MAE BRUYERE.
    It is the sense of Congress that the Secretary of Veterans Affairs 
should designate a prominent physical space within the Jennifer Moreno 
Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, as designated pursuant 
to section 2, in honor of Kathleen Mae Bruyere.

                               Speaker of the House of Representatives.

                            Vice President of the United States and    
                                               President of the Senate.
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