Expressing the condolences of the House of Representatives on the death of the Honorable Charlie Norwood, a Representative of the State of Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, I didn't know Charlie well; I only met Charlie once before I came to Congress and then had a few occasions to work with him in Congress. I certainly knew his reputation. He was a great advocate for veterans and a great advocate for patients' rights and, on some subjects, willing to buck his leadership in order to advance the cause of patients' rights, and it was something I appreciated a great deal.

As Charlie grew sicker, from time to time I would seek him out on the floor and ask him how he was doing. He was always upbeat about it, he was always positive about it. He was never down and sad. He would be very frank about what he was able to do and where he was and what his challenges were, but he was always positive about his circumstances. His circumstance was awful, as everybody knows. He fought this disease for years and gradually grew worse, and we were all worried about him.

So one of the things I did just trying to get to know Charlie a little better is I went to his Web site and looked up a little bit about him, and was struck by the description that I found of his military service in Vietnam. And I thought I would like to just read that; and many people who are watching this won't have an opportunity to hear this about Charlie, though everybody knows, I think, that he served in the military.

But specifically during his tour in Vietnam, Charlie Norwood participated in experimental military dental practices that became standard procedure for the Armed Forces after the war. He was one of the first participants in the Army outreach program to deliver dentists to forward fire bases in lieu of transferring patients to rear treatment areas. I am not sure if the rest of the dentists and the doctors appreciated that very much; it meant that you were going into harm's way a little bit more than they otherwise would.

Norwood also provided some of the first field-based dental treatment of military guard dogs, and assisted in nondental trauma care in Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals, MASH, units. In recognition of his service under combat conditions, he was awarded the Combat Medical Badge and two Bronze Stars. After Vietnam, he was assigned to the Dental Corps at Fort Gordon, Georgia, where he served until his discharge in 1969. Norwood was awarded the Association of the Army's Cocklin Award in 1998, and was inducted into the Association's Audie Murphy Society in 1999. He remained a lifelong member of the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Military Order of the World Wars.

Charlie's family should be very proud of Charlie Norwood. As Charlie Norwood was slowly struggling with the disease that took his life, he had to look back on his life and realize that he helped an awful lot of people in a very positive way. We will miss him.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Georgia.

I rise in support of the resolution and to pay tribute to my friend and fellow member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Dr. Charlie Norwood.

Charlie came to Congress after my first term as part of the class of 1994, and it seems a year did not go by that we did not serve on a committee together.

I honorably served with him at first on the Education and Workforce Committee and then later on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Charlie and I shared a passion for health care issues, and I particularly enjoyed our work together on the Health Subcommittee.

A dentist by training, Charlie was devoted to improving the health care system, not only for providers like himself but also for the patients that rely on our health care system to keep them well.

The phrase Patients' Bill of Rights would not have been coined if Charlie and our chairman, John Dingell, had not teamed up to give patients an ability to fight back against the HMOs that too often make health care decisions based on the bottom line, rather than a physician's recommendation.

I note Charlie's last legislative act before leaving Washington and returning to Georgia was to reintroduce the Patients' Bill of Rights in this Congress as H.R. 979.

There is no doubt in my mind that this legislation will be Charlie's legacy and will honor him and his work in this esteemed Chamber by finally making his vision of patients' rights a reality.

Last July 4 recess, Charlie and I joined two other members of the Health Subcommittee as we visited the impressive trauma facilities utilized by our brave military doctors to treat our wounded service personnel in Balad and Baghdad, Iraq and Kabul, Afghanistan.

I knew there was a good reason Charlie and I got along, despite being different parties, but I also realized that

trip that Charlie and I shared a lot of interests, and one of them in firearms. I met few people with more enthusiasm for firearms than Charlie Norwood.

In fact, I will mention that how he cared about people, and Chairman Deal understands that, he presented a book to those of us who went. It has a picture of Charlie Norwood with a .50-caliber machine gun in a helicopter we were flying in, but Charlie was not really happy because he was not sitting behind that .50-caliber machine gun.

Charlie was a good doctor and honorable Member of Congress and a great friend. He always thought of others, and I will always remember him for his friendship for these years. Our thoughts are with his family, and his wife Gloria has become a good friend of my wife Helen through the Congressional Spouses, and I will miss Charlie, and we all will. We honor his memory and his contributions to our country.

Mr. Speaker, Charlie Norwood was a very successful dentist in my hometown of Augusta, Georgia. I didn't know Charlie at that time because I had long since moved away.

But as a practicing physician in Marietta, Georgia, as an OB/GYN, several years ago I went to the annual meeting of the Georgia OB/GYN Society to hear Dr. Charlie Norwood talk about the Patients' Bill of Rights. Physicians across Georgia and across this country were concerned with managed care and HMOs and liability and that sort of thing.

And, Mr. Speaker, when I heard Dr. Norwood speak to my colleagues, physicians about this issue, and them, in turn, including myself, give him a standing ovation, I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, and I never did tell Charlie this, but that was an inspiration to me to want to some day have the opportunity, and thank God that I did, to follow in that walk that he walked.

What a great Member of this body and what a fierce competitor and a fair competitor, Mr. Speaker. As my colleague on the other side of the aisle, the distinguished John Lewis, knows well, Charlie would fight for something he believed in but in a very respectful way. And he thought about others before himself.

An example, Mr. Speaker, is that just in this last election cycle, when Charlie was suffering so much, as Representative Deal has just mentioned, he didn't think about himself. He won his reelection with 67 percent of the vote. And it wasn't that he couldn't campaign because of his illness. He was working all that time for another colleague in a very competitive district. He was essentially running that other campaign. That is the kind of guy Charlie Norwood was, and the kind of fellow that we will all remember here on both sides of the aisle in this great House of Representatives.

He was a friend, he was a colleague. He was a fighter. He was a fighter for patients' rights. He was a fighter for students, as his work on the Education and Workforce Committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee, he is somebody that we can all emulate.

And I just want to say to his wife Gloria, to his two sons, Carlton and Charles, Jr., and to the four grandchildren and to the Norwood family, we are praying for you. We want to uplift you. We will be with you tomorrow, but we know, as you do, that Charlie is in heaven right now, and God has accepted him in open arms and saying, well done, my good and faithful servant.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all of the fine colleagues that we have who are from Georgia for giving each and every one of us a chance to speak. I am not from Georgia, and I know he was your favorite son, but I do want to give this as my chance to honor this very distinguished Member of Congress, Charlie Norwood.

I rise, Mr. Speaker, today with a heavy heart but also real admiration for the life of this dear colleague of ours, Charlie Norwood. And my heart as well as all of our hearts go out to his family members, to his community, and to all of the people whose life he has touched.

I had the privilege of serving on the Energy and Commerce Committee with Charlie for several years and had the opportunity to work with him on initiatives in the Health Subcommittee. And though he and I come from vastly different places on the ideological spectrum, we were often able to see eye to eye on health policy as two health professionals serving in Congress.

I was proud to work with him in co-chairing the School Health and Safety Caucus, where we used the opportunity to spotlight ways in which we could improve the health of children through school-based initiatives. I was also honored to work with him on legislation to promote children's dental health.

I think we can all agree that Charlie will be remembered as reliably conservative, but also as an independent thinker. His leadership on establishing a Patients' Bill of Rights was exemplary of his willingness to go out on a limb for something in which he truly believed. He introduced that bill shortly before I came to Congress, and the momentum for passage of the Patients' Bill of Rights was one of the main reasons that I was eager to serve on this Health Subcommittee, which he belonged to.

I admired his characteristic patient-centered approach to health care policy. It wasn't popular with some of our colleagues, and the President flat-out warned that his bill would be vetoed. But Charlie continued forward and was looking forward to an opportunity to finally pass the Patients' Bill of Rights in its original form in this, the 110th Congress.

So I want to take this opportunity to express again my condolences to the Norwood family and to thank them all for the tremendous years, 12 years, of service that they allowed their Charlie to serve with us all in Congress. And I thank my colleagues again.

I thank you for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak about my friend, Charlie Norwood. I have prepared remarks, but I would really like to just relate like others have.

The first time I ran into Charlie I was a new freshman in this body. He sat behind me. And when you are brand new here, you are listening and you are trying to figure out what is going on. And when Charlie Norwood opened his mouth, he was saying things sometimes that others were not, and stood his ground to those things, even though they might be in conflict with both the other side and his party, both. Charlie had a way of standing up for his principles.

I also want to talk about Gloria, because Gloria took my wife under her wing and was kind to her. And I can tell you for this last year and a half, literally every week that I have served in this Congress, my wife has asked about Charlie's health because she fell in love with Gloria Norwood.

Everyone in this House sends out their hearts to Gloria at the loss of her beloved husband. We were proud to serve with him. He was a great American.

Today I rise to honor my friend and colleague Mr. Charlie Norwood from Northeastern Georgia who passed away yesterday morning. As a man of strong character and unwavering convictions, his passing is surely a saddening loss to the American people.

Charlie Norwood served as a brave soldier during Vietnam as part of the Army Dental Corps in the 173rd Airborne Brigade. He was honored for his courageous service with the Combat Medical Badge and two Bronze Stars.

Elected to Congress in 1994, Charlie was the first Republican to represent his Northeastern Georgia district since Reconstruction. During his time in Congress he was known for his endless fight for the patients' bill of rights and his fight for stricter immigration policies.

Charlie bravely battled cancer and lung disease, and in his final days he returned to Augusta to be with his family. The Norwood family will be in my thoughts and prayers. Please join me, Mr. Speaker, in expressing our deep appreciation for the lifetime of service by Charlie Norwood and extending our sympathies to his wife, Gloria Wilkinson Norwood, and their family.

Mr. Speaker, it is with sorrow, yet fondness, that I speak on the passing of our colleague and friend, Charlie Norwood. While in Congress, his dedication to Georgians, to patient advocacy, to business ownership and property rights, and to veterans are legendary.

Prior to his service in the House of Representatives, Charlie served his country as a Captain in the U.S. Army Dental Corps in Vietnam, and he contributed to his community as a dentist, business owner, and active worshipper in his Methodist Church.

I first learned about Charlie in 1994 when he was running for his Georgia district. Struck by his pluckiness and quiet steadfast determination even then, I decided to campaign for him in his district- to-be, and met his wife Gloria. And when he was elected, he immediately became a player in health care legislation, not waiting for reaching the echelons of seniority to make real contributions.

Through all his trials, Charlie Norwood had a sparkle, an ingenuity how to get things accomplished. His passion would at times translate into defiance at another Member. In particular, I recall such a moment at the Energy & Commerce markup on July 27, 2006 of H.R. 4157, the Better Health Information System Act of 2006, or ``Health IT'' bill. Another Member, Representative Markey, was offering some language that would have the effect of governing relations between health care providers and their patients. Well, Charlie took great exception to this, and rather angrily erupted to Representative Markey that his profession has engaged in the highest ethical standards of patient privacy since the inception of dentistry, and therefore ``I don't need you to legislate my professional ethics.''

In the past couple of years, Charlie would ride in his scooter to the Energy & Commerce Committee on which we served together, and to the Floor, for debate and hearings and votes. And notwithstanding his ailing health, I was always touched by his continued friendly, high spirits. Charlie, I am honored to have known you. Rest in peace.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to stand this afternoon to give some remarks about our colleague and dear friend, Charlie Norwood.

Shakespeare wrote that all the world is a stage and all the men and women merely players. Each has his entrance and his exit. One man in his time may play many parts.

So it was with Charlie. Charlie was a son, a son to Charlie Norwood, Sr., and Lola. He was a husband to Gloria. He was a father to Charlie and Carlton and a grandfather. And he was a cousin to two very, very wonderful ladies down in Valdosta who said that they often prayed for Cousin Charlie, because they just couldn't understand how he became a Republican.

Charlie was a student. Charlie got his bachelor's. He studied dentistry. He was a soldier. He served his country. He was in Vietnam. But Charlie was a public servant. Charlie believed in serving leadership, and he lived it.

Charlie really was great, because measured by the standards of Jesus, that he who is great among you shall be your servant, and he who is greatest shall be servant unto all, Charlie measured up.

Charlie was a fighter. Charlie fought hard for any principle in which he believed. He didn't give up, as you heard, on the Patients' Bill of Rights. He was a fierce competitor. I often didn't agree with him, but I had to admire his tenacity, because he was a fighter. And all the way to the end, Charlie fought. He fought for life.

We are all blessed, really blessed, to have known Charlie. And Gloria was devoted to Charlie. She took leave from her duties as a member of the Congressional Club to attend to Charlie, to give Charlie her best efforts in his last days.

But Charlie served well. He really embodied God's minute. I have only just a minute, only 60 seconds in it; forced upon me, can't refuse it; didn't seek it, didn't choose, did it; I must suffer if I lose it, give account if I abuse it; just a tiny little minute, but eternity is in it.

Thank you, Charlie. You used your minute well.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, today I mourningly lost not only a colleague but a very close friend. We all know that Charlie's unwavering dedication to his constituents and to our Nation inspired us who had the privilege of serving with him. He was known and was well-documented as a principled lawmaker who was absolutely committed to his values and to his work in this people's House. He was never afraid to stand up for his convictions.

But, Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak on a personal note, because Charlie and I were elected in 1994, and I see several of my colleagues here that are going to speak after me. My wife Claire and his wife Gloria became friends during the orientation. And while my wife doesn't come back here as often as Gloria was here with Charlie, whenever she came back we always made it a point as often as we could to get together with the Norwoods and have dinner. Charlie loved to try a lot of different venues: He was a steak man, and we ate steak. He liked Italian food, and we found several Italian places that we ate. He took me to a Korean restaurant. He liked Korean food after being in Asia. And we had great conversations. We talked about the patients' bill of rights; we disagreed. We talked about OSHA; we agreed. And so he and Gloria became good friends of Claire and me, and he even hosted my brother and I down at the Master's one year. My older brother and Charlie shared the same birth date, so they had a bond right off the bat.

If there is one legacy I think that Charlie will leave with all of us, it is the bulldoggedness and the determination with which he pursued legislation. But if there is one other legacy that will be left, it is the way he displayed the courage to fight this disease that he had. And I truly think, Mr. Speaker, that any lesser man would not have lasted as long as he did with the disease that he had.

Charlie will be very, very much missed, and our prayers go out to Gloria and the family.