Recognizing the courage and sacrifice of those members of the United States Armed Forces who were held as prisoners of war during the Vietnam conflict and calling for a full accounting of the 1,729 members of the Armed Forces who remain unaccounted for from the Vietnam conflict.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, we are in the middle of a war in which the battlefield situation changes on a daily

basis. The idea that the gentleman has given us a requirement for the administration to project until 2068, for 50, 60 years as to what is going to happen on the battlefield and what the casualties are going to be; and I believe he has laid out 23 considerations.

When you get out that far, Mr. Chairman, this becomes basically an editorial against the war, and I think there are other ways you can put that if you want to frame that particular position. But the idea that we are asking as we sit here and try to figure out what gas prices are going to be in 2 weeks, the idea that we are going to figure out how Iraq is going to be situated half a century from now, I think that is simply something that trivializes our debate on this very critical issue.

And let me tell you, 23 factors if we actually put this thing in law, the idea that we are supposed to have our people in uniform devoted to figuring out how to succeed in their mission, how to take care of our people, to have them out there trying to be seers of the future for half a century with respect to a war that is changing on a weekly basis is an enormous burden on people who wear the uniform.

So, Mr. Chairman, I think we should all vote a resounding ``no'' on this, and let's do analyses that are relevant, that can be utilized. But the idea of sending our people down the pike for a 50-year look at the future I think is not going to be good for this committee and I think it is not going to be productive for the security of the United States.

I reserve the balance of my time

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to Mr. Castle, the gentleman from Delaware, 2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlelady from West Virginia (Mrs. Capito) 2 minutes.

Reserving the right to object, Madam Chairman, I will not object, except I want to talk to my friend about what he calls earmarks.

A couple of years ago when our guys started to get hurt with roadside bombs in Iraq, we realized that there were no jammers to jam those electronic signals that detonate the 155 rounds that were blowing up American Marines and soldiers, no portable jammers. That means while we had the big jammers we carry in the trucks to protect convoys, there were no jammers to protect that squad of Marines or soldiers working through a courtyard in Ramadi or Fallujah.

This committee put in $10 million for 10,000, jammers which we researched and developed, manufactured and deployed in the field in 70 days. Those were earmarks.

Now, if the gentleman's assertation is true, and the whole theme of his argument here is if the Pentagon doesn't request it, it's not needed, I disagree with it. This is what the Pentagon had for portable jammers for our troops: zero.

I can tell the gentleman about the system that we put in that has had a very salutary effect on the ability of the enemy to hurt our troops with mortars, also so-called earmarks. I can tell the gentleman about our surveillance programs that we added to, also so-called earmarks. I could tell the gentleman that I put in the defense budget a couple of years ago, along with my good friend Ike Skelton, an increase in U.S. Marine Corps, taking them up at that point to 180,000. Today nobody suggests that we should somehow discharge those Marines because we added them above and beyond the President's budget. In fact, the President now has come back and said, you know, you guys in the Armed Services Committee were right, and because of that, they put in a request this year for 7,000 more Army troops and 5,000 more Marines.

So I would just say to the gentleman it's our job, our responsibility under the Constitution, to build this defense budget. It's not the Pentagon's. In fact, the Constitution doesn't mention the Pentagon.

Now, what I do with the initiatives that I put in, I put them on the Internet. How's that for disclosure? I think at least a couple hundred people see that. Now, with respect to how many people see these, we put out the directive report language. Everybody sees that. But you mark up your subcommittees only a few days, sometimes as much as a week but rarely longer, before you go to full committee. And so the tables that have all of the numbers in them, and it's got hundreds and hundreds of entries, are available to any Member that wants to come by and ask for them. But we're not going to put those out to the press and cause a massive circus of contractors and media people swarming the committee when we're trying to get our job done. We have never done it like that.

But the disparaging way in which the gentleman talks about things that we put in, some of which are crucial to the survival of your constituents, the young men and women who joined the Marine Corps and the Army from your district, I think is misplaced.

The building of the defense budget is a very important thing. It's a thing that we do often in disagreement with the Pentagon. We have put in additional aircraft carriers when you had Presidents who didn't want to put them in because we thought they were important to the survival of this country, and we turned out to be right. We have increased end strength in the Army and Marine Corps. We have done most of the work on UAVs, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. That means you don't get pilots shot down. That means you're able to disperse many more platforms that can gather information.

The things that we put in the defense budget are generally done after a lot of thought, a lot of analysis and, generally speaking, they have been very good for our troops.

I'd be happy to yield.

We did authorize them.

Let me take back my time and explain to the gentleman why it's important to have report language. You start programs and you also put policies in place. If you put those in the bill and those are locked into law and then you get a call from the administration and they say, You know, we looked at this thing and there's not enough long-lead materials to build this. You are strait-jacketed. The administration can't come back and say, We want to reprogram. At that point, you have to change the law.

If you have a policy, and here you have wars in two theaters, if you have a policy you have to change, you can't just call up and you can't work the policy out with the Army, the Air Force, the Navy, the Marine Corps. You now have to go back and change the law. If you have looked at the reprogramming requests that are made by the Pentagon, they are usually made with respect to some factor that has changed. You would have hundreds of changes that now require changes in the law, and in a very real way, having report language that gives flexibility to the administration, is for their benefit.

Now we can put all this stuff in the law if that is the requirement to do it. But it doesn't make sense, either for us or for the administration. That is why you have it, because you have changing situations and you have got to have the flexibility for people to call up and say, You know, we just developed another system that is better than that one. Let's not continue to fund that in a straitjacket. Let's go ahead and reprogram and go to the other one. Or maybe we have a priority. Maybe we need ammunition, maybe we need more ammunition. So we want you to take money from this program and put it into ammunition. You can't do that if everything is in statute.

Be happy to.

If you take the gentleman's argument to its ultimate conclusion, that means the portable jammers, the ones that only weigh a couple of pounds that we gave to our marines to save their lives so they can carry them, because you can't carry the 150-pounders on your back when you're on a patrol, they would not have gotten those because they weren't in the Pentagon's budget.

The point that I am making is that the Pentagon often misses things. They don't have always the best judgment in this world. I point to guys like the chairman of the Defense Appropriations in the full committee, Mr. Lewis, who, by many people, is considered one of the fathers of the Predator. The Predator aircraft has saved lives because it's allowed us to do recon and striking without having to have a pilot out there who may be shot down and have to be recovered. That was a program that required a lot of pushing against the will of the Pentagon.

So I disagree with the gentleman's argument that somehow anything the Pentagon disagrees with is illegitimate. We've had, in many cases, a better idea than the Pentagon, and the increases in the Army and Marine Corps are two of the great examples. This committee said you have to increase it, and we increased it. You call that an earmark. Today, the administration calls it the right thing to do.

Be happy to yield.

Let me just say to my friend, I believe in disclosure. That is why I put every initiative on the Internet. I think you have got to disclose things and you have got to be able to be accountable for those things. I think that's absolutely true.

That's right.

Sure.

Taking back my time, I don't think we are going to be appropriating any melting shirts, or authorizing any melting shirts. We do serious stuff. And when you have a defense bill which is over $500 billion and it has thousands and thousands of provisions in it, I would say that the number of changes we make actually is fairly minimal.

If you look at the massive amount of money that is spent on defense, the change that we make in scoping the defense bill, which is not only our prerogative, it's our mandate, it doesn't say: You shall accept and rubber-stamp what the Pentagon puts out there. And experience has shown us. And, thankfully, we have followed our mandate because we have put in systems that have saved lives, that the Pentagon didn't think about, and we have put in more systems that have made us more effective at fighting the Nation's war that the Pentagon didn't think about.

We have got members on the committee, I would say to my friend, who have taken five, six, seven, eight trips to Iraq and Afghanistan. They see things. They write down notes. We have our professional staff with us. We were out there looking at the Fourth Division and we saw some of their trucks whose armor consisted of two layers of plywood, with sandbags in between. That is why we went back and on an initiative we put together double-hulled trucks. To my knowledge, none of those double-hulled trucks has yet been penetrated by any enemy shrapnel from a roadside bomb. We do things in response to what we think the solders and sailors and airmen and marines need.

So I agree with the gentleman that we should all be accountable for what we put in a bill, whether it's a defense bill or something else, and you have got to stand up. If it's a bad one, you take the heat for it. But just saying anything that doesn't come out of the administration is, by definition, illegitimate, is absolutely not accurate.

I can just tell you this. If you end up with an administration that you don't agree with, like some Republicans who didn't agree with what President Carter did with defense spending in the last part of his term, when we put in, along with some pretty discerning Democrats, an extra aircraft carrier, and if you want to straitjacket this body, where a President that you don't agree with, who you feel is cutting defense spending to the bone, and maybe beyond the bone, where, as a rule, if he or she doesn't agree or doesn't put that out as a defense budget, you consider it your duty to not add a single cent, then I think we are putting ourselves in a position where we are disserving the people that we represent, because our job is to put together a defense budget.

Absolutely.

Taking my time back, I would just say to the gentleman, I put my initiatives, and I don't call them earmarks because I don't think they are illegitimate, I put them on the Internet. As I learned in my ill-fated national campaign, people aren't paying a lot of attention to my Internet site. But I had it there for millions of people to see. And I think that is the appropriate thing to do.

I just want to assure the gentleman of something so that he rests easy, to some degree. The people of this committee are really hardworking people. I think we have got one member who's been to Afghanistan and Iraq something like 13 times. I haven't been there that much, but I have been there a lot. They spend a ton of time working for the uniformed people of the United States. They make lots of notes and they do lots of analysis.

Let me tell you, the way you put together a defense budget is you have got somebody sitting in the Pentagon, and somebody comes over and sits next to him and says, You know, here's a system that the company I am working for would like to have in the defense budget. And they make a case for it.

None of this stuff is derived through a stainless process. We are all people. The only thing that really makes this government go is accountability, and people should be held accountable for the things that they put in the bill. The vast number of folks that put things in the defense bill put out press releases with respect to what they put in. They don't hide that. People put in provisions that have a value to the military. If you go down the line and analyze them, I think that you would concur with that.

So I want you to know this is a committee that really does its homework. It's got a great staff that works very hard, and we have done a lot of things that have saved soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines on the battlefield, who

would not have been saved if we just rubber-stamped the President's budget. I guess that is my point.

I thank the gentleman.

I withdraw my reservation.

Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chairman, I would just say to my colleague, I have great respect for him and I agree with the purpose of this amendment. I disagree to some degree with the offset, which is from missile defense. You may have heard a number of us here making the case for the importance of missile defense.

So I would hope as we move along to conference, we can find another offset for this. I do support very strongly your purpose. What I would like to do is find another offset for this.

Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry), who has been a member of the committee and also the Intelligence Committee.

Madam Chairman, let me go over the adequate safeguards that are currently in place. The contract must specify the interrogation support. All support must be in accordance with applicable law and policy. They must be trained and certified, in- theater training. They must be closely supervised and monitored. They will not oversee, direct or monitor interrogations. They operate only in fixed facilities. They must submit a written interrogation plan. And, lastly, they are subject to prosecution.

Let me say to my friend from Virginia and the author of this amendment, because they are both friends and I know their hearts are in the right place, I have observed one interrogation, one of the first times I have seen an interrogation. It was an older lady reading a children's book to a detainee.

I said, ``You gotta be kidding me.'' I expected all the classic stuff like we see in the movies. And our escort said, ``Are you kidding?'' They said, ``This lady is one of the most effective people we have, and she does extremely well.'' I believe she was a contractor. She sure as heck wasn't a uniformed service person.

Now, my point is that there is a lot of psychology, that there is a lot of art to this, there is a lot of human relations. And if you have prohibitions against coercive behavior, and we have got rows of those in all of our manuals, if you have got somebody that you can contract with who can walk into a room and walk out maybe 2 days later, maybe 8 days later, maybe 6 months later with information that will save the lives of your troops and advance the mission, who cares if that is an elderly lady who happens to be a civilian and may not want to join the Army?

I yield to my friend.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I would just say to my colleagues that you do have to be certified, you do have to be trained, you have to be supervised, and you are subject to prosecution. So our special operators have laid down a pretty strict set of guidelines. And the last thing that I saw coming from the department was that this would severely hamper Special Operations' capability if it was passed.

Now, that may be because many of the things Mr. Thornberry talked about with respect to language, with respect to availability. I think we should respect what the warfighters say about this and get more information before we take a vote like this.

Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I am going to yield to Mr. Thornberry, but first let me just say this. I respect the gentleman who just made the statement who has been in Iraq. But my son was in Iraq, also, and on two missions, two tours, and Afghanistan. And one important fact that I think comes out when you talk to folks who have been there is the exigency of the battlefield. That is the

need to do things quickly, to be creative, to be able to move quickly to save the lives of your comrades and to carry out your mission.

Now, let's think about this. You have to videotape interrogations. What happens if you have got people coming in, moving in a pincer movement against a particular area, maybe some buildings, maybe you have got some machine gun fire, and you have been hitting IEDs, and you capture somebody and you have got people in movement. And you have to bring up then the video cameras to interrogate before you can have a successful interrogation. And what if you don't have video cameras? You are going to have people who are deterred from being able to do that because they are going to be worried that somehow they are going to be found in violation of the rules.

Now, we have got a letter here from the Under Secretary of Defense who says that the Defense Department very strongly opposes this requirement to video record all intelligence interrogations. They say: This requirement runs contrary to sound Defense Department policy, which relies upon careful selection and empowerment of the chain of command to execute the mission. Currently, commanders video record interrogations only after determining that the environment is conducive and the recordings will add value to the mission.

I might add that if you have interrogations, especially if you have got special operators who are out among the population and you lose one of the recordings, then you expose them to enormous risk.

So the idea of making this not discretionary and mandating it I think doesn't make a lot of sense.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise in strong support of this rule. I suggest further, if we were all adults on this floor, everybody would say this rule, outside of the ambit of what amendments are made in order on the defense bill, is an appropriate rule. It is an appropriate rule to respond to a mistake that was made.

As the gentleman from California observed earlier in debate, mistakes are made. Unlike the previous instance some years ago, which were discussed on this floor of the deficit reduction bill where the minority was not notified, the assertion the minority was not notified was absolutely inaccurate,

and Mr. Goodlatte would say that. In point of fact what happened was Mr. Peterson learned of it, talked to Mr. Goodlatte about it, then discussed it with me, and they decided jointly and bipartisanly to proceed.

Unlike the Deficit Reduction Act, the first thing that Mr. Peterson said in arguing for the override of the President's veto was, there is a problem here. He wanted all the Members to know what the problem was. There was not a Member on the floor who didn't know what the problem was.

When they voted, a majority of the minority party voted to override the President's veto because they believed the policy proposed in that bill is a good one. The overwhelming majority of Democrats voted for that bill, and 316 out of 435 of us--there weren't 435 of us; there were 11 absentees. So 316 out of about 424 voted for this bill.

This bill, unfortunately, included fourteen-fifteenths of the bill we passed, and really a larger proportion of that because in terms of pages it was probably 95 percent, 98 percent of the bill.

Now, a mistake was made. It was not a venal mistake. It was not a conscious mistake. And the mistake was made, as everybody ought to know, by the Clerk of the Congress and OMB, and they both made the same mistake. And the mistake they made was reading from the printed copy as opposed to the parchment copy. OMB didn't read from the parchment copy, we didn't read from the parchment copy, because the belief was a decision made 10 years ago by the Deputy Clerk not to proofread the parchment because changing the parchment was too expensive, but to read from the printed copy which then, if found in error, could be corrected and reprinted and then programmed for the parchment to be printed from that. And both our side--our side, the Congress--and the OMB made the same mistake. They assumed, as normally is the case, that the parchment reflected exactly what the conference printed report said.

Unfortunately, in this instance it did not. We still don't have a full explanation of how that happened. But obviously, notwithstanding the fact that parchment indicates that title III in the table of contents is included, when you go to page 169, the end of title II, and you turn the page to 170, you go to title IV. Now, one would have thought it would have been a pretty simple proofreading job if you read the parchment. Unfortunately, the print document which was used by OMB and the Congress to proof did in fact include title III.

Okay. So we made a mistake. The administration made a mistake, we made a mistake, the bill was not whole.

This is, my friends, not an unusual situation. In an 1892 case, which was relied upon in the budget case as well, the Court clearly said: Whatever the facts are internally to the House of Representatives, what the President signs is the statute, is the law.

The Supreme Court says clearly, therefore, that what the President sent us back and the veto overridden is in fact what the court has found is the law. Now, unfortunately, it doesn't include title III. We want to pass title III.

This bill took some 15 months, 18 months of deliberation. The farm bill expires tonight or tomorrow, Friday. So we can either do another extension, which is possible, or we can pass what was overwhelmingly passed in the Senate, overwhelmingly passed in the House of Representatives, and, as I said on the floor last night, was passed in exactly the same form without title III as was passed in both Houses. There were no changes. No alterations. That was not the case in the deficit bill that was referred to by Mr. Boehner yesterday.

In fact, a very substantial difference was made in the bill without notice to the Democrats, a $2 billion change, I might add, changing from 36 months to 13 months the implications of the reimbursement of Medicare for implements.

Now, that is all to say that this is not without precedent, number one. There are a number of cases that hold that what we did yesterday was exactly appropriate, and that law is not subject to question. Everything is subject to question, but not valid question or winning question.

So what have we done?

First of all, I discussed it with the Parliamentarian. I had not done so when we had the colloquy with Mr. Boehner. I then discussed it with the chairman. The chairman discussed it throughout the next few hours with Mr. Goodlatte, Mr. Chambliss, Mr. Harkin and others.

I discussed it with Mr. Reid to figure out, a mistake has been made, how do we correct that, in fairness to everybody, on a bill, that, by the way, the Deficit Reduction Act was passed by a two-vote margin in the House, and in the United States Senate was passed because of the Vice President's vote. And we were not informed, so we were somewhat concerned about the $2 billion mistake that had been made.

In this case, that is not the issue at all, and it's a bill that was, in a bipartisan basis, passed by a majority of the Republicans and overwhelming majority of Democrats.

So what solution did we come up with? Resending the bill that, under the Supreme Court's edict is, in fact, law if it is overridden in the Senate, so that fourteen-fifteenths of what is the Congress's intent will be accomplished.

The rule then says, but in an abundance of caution, we'll also provide for the passage of the entire bill and send it over to the Senate, as has been passed overwhelmingly in both Houses.

In addition to that, we said, the bill does not include title III that is going to be in the veto message that's sent to the Senate.

I know for the public, this is pretty esoteric, and they don't really care. What they care is the substance.

But the point that I'm trying to make is, we are trying to correct a mistake and serve the agricultural community, serve those millions of people who are relying on the nutritional aid, serving those people who are relying on the conservation assistance throughout this country, to have this bill, after 18 months almost of consideration, serious bipartisan working and overwhelming bipartisan votes in both Houses, enacted into law.

But we are also providing separately for the passage of title III. In other words, we're doing title III twice, once as the full bill so we can repass the full bill. If the Senate decides, as I hope it will, to pass that again, then we will not only have passed fourteen-fifteenths, we will have passed fifteen-fifteenths in another bill, and they will be reconciled and they will be consistent with the law and with the will of this body representing the American people.

Now at about 7 p.m. last night, those of you who heard the colloquy, I indicated to Mr. Boehner we ought to talk about this. I went by Mr. Boehner's office to explain to him what I thought the solution to this problem was and discuss it with him. He was not at his office. I left a message and my phone number at 7 o'clock last night. I have not yet received a response to that visit.

I went to his office to suggest that, pursuant to my representation on the floor, we discuss that. I have not yet received a phone call.

I did talk to Mr. Blunt last night. I've talked to Mr. Blunt this morning. I frankly am offended, I will tell you, by the mischaracterization of what we are doing here by the representatives of the minority leader's office.

There are no games being played here. There was a mistake made. And if we were adults and nonpartisan and wanted to deal with this in a responsible way, I suggest we would have agreed on this proposal.

Now, unfortunately, we didn't get to an agreement. I don't allege that anybody on your side has agreed to this. But to suggest that it hasn't been discussed, informed, and I called as soon as I came in this morning, the leadership on your side, to explain exactly this procedure.

Now you can disagree with the farm bill or not disagree with the farm bill. I understand that additional games are going to be played, as it was my perception last week were played. On Thursday, 131 or 132 of you decided, notwithstanding the fact that I am sure you are for funding the troops in Iraq, you voted ``present.'' That was your decision.

It's my understanding now that perhaps you're being urged, some of you who are for this bill, to deny the two-thirds on the suspension of a bill that has gotten essentially three-quarters of

this House and 80 percent of the United States Senate supporting it.

Ladies and gentlemen, at some point in time the American public expects us to act as adults, not simply as partisan protagonists, to conduct business, notwithstanding the fact because we are humans, and those who work for us are humans and are under great stress. They have to work around the clock. They work 15-hour days, sometimes longer days. And we expect them to act without ever making a mistake. That is unreasonable. And when they make mistakes, and when we make mistakes, it is appropriate for us respond in a way that will correct those mistakes and, at the same time, carry out the policies that are overwhelmingly supported by this body.

My friends on both sides of the aisle, I would hope that we could do that. I regret that the minority leader has not called me back. I regret that he has not sat down and, with me, had the opportunity to discuss this. I had a discussion with him before the vote last night. It was a very calm, reasonable discussion, Mr. Lawrence and I, outside the middle door. We knew there was a problem. We knew we had to solve it. I think this does, in fact, solve it from the standpoint of adopting the policy overwhelmingly supported by this Congress of assuring that title III is addressed, and assuring us of the opportunity to make sure that it's not subject even to any lawsuit question by, again, passing the entire bill supported by, as I said, over 75 percent of the Congress of the United States.

I understand there may be questions about which amendment was allowed in order to the defense bill and which wasn't, so on that case, you may vote differently on the rule. But on the addressing of the mistake that was inadvertently made, and I stress again, by the Congress and by the Office of Management and Budget, same mistake apparently was made, that we can correct this as adults treating one another in a way that each of us would want to be treated to act so that we adopt policies that are supported by this Congress.

I would be glad to yield to my friend, Mr. Blunt, if he wants time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank you. I hope I didn't imply that. What I said, what I meant to say, if I misspoke, not that the--we, first of all agree and, as I've said, we're going to do what you suggest in an abundance of caution to assure us, ourselves, and I would hope that we would all, or least those who are for the farm bill would vote for it, the entire bill will be put on suspension. In light of the fact we had 75 percent of this House support that bill, that would be more than enough to pass it on suspension. We're going to do that in an abundance of caution.

In addition, we're going to do title III separately so the Senate can have that option as well, so if on the veto override they do fourteen- fifteenths of the bill, they can do the one-fifteenth, that is, title III at the same time so they would contemporaneously move forward.

When I refer to, and if I offended the gentleman, adult behavior, this is not a political problem. It is a procedural problem that we need to cure, and we've been working to cure it. You and I have had discussions about it, very positive discussions about it over the last 12 hours. And I would hope that we could proceed on that basis.

And I yield back some time.

Reclaiming my time. I thank the gentleman for his comments.

I simply rise to say that this rule accomplishes exactly, in my opinion, what the minority whip wants to accomplish. It provides for the full passage of this bill under suspension, which the gentleman was for when it passed before, which I was for, and I will vote for. And that suspension accomplishes exactly that objective, so that any defect caused by the mistake will be cured.

Secondly, it's not blame. I, frankly, think the decision that was made 10 years ago was a rational decision. The decision was not to use the parchment copy as a copy to mark on to correct. There was no criticism there. It was simply that's when the decision was made. I think it, frankly, was a good decision.

The problem was, neither OMB nor ourselves used the parchment copy. We used the printed copy. The printed copy did, in fact, have title III in there. And obviously both the President and ourselves thought that the bill that was signed was the full bill. It ended up not being so, so we're going to correct that. I think we're correcting it properly.

I would urge all Members to vote for the rule, vote for the full bill, the farm bill which, as I said, got over 75 percent of the House and over 80 percent the Senate. Vote for title III so that, frankly, that can be passed more quickly by the Senate under its rules, and the leader has already indicated he will move forward on that.

If you have a disagreement, you won't vote for that. I understand that. And I think we will, therefore, cure the issue at hand.

I congratulate the Rules Committee for adopting this rule. I urge my colleagues to vote for the rule, and if we do so, we will adopt a farm bill that I think will be good for the country. I think we will enact a farm bill which will be unimpeachable in either aspect, and I think we will have done what the American people expect us to do.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend and colleague from California (Mr. Cardoza) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Mr. HASTINGS of Washington asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, there are two primary purposes to the rule that is before the House today. One purpose, legitimate, though unfair, relating to the defense authorization bill. The other purpose, a unilateral, partisan abuse of power by the liberal leaders of the House.

The first purpose. This rule provides for consideration of 58 amendments to the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009. Of the 58 amendments that this rule makes in order, 42 are Democrat amendments. Just 14 Republican amendments were allowed. Two of those amendments have bipartisan support.

The Rules Committee has blocked two-thirds of the amendments submitted by members of the Republican Party. Reasonable, responsible amendments that raise legitimate national defense issues relating to the security of American troops and the American people are not being permitted to be debated on the House floor.

The defense authorization bill was approved by a unanimous bipartisan support, Mr. Speaker, of the Armed Services Committee. But that does not mean that that bill is perfect. Indeed, amendments to the bill were filed with the Rules Committee by both Democrats and Republican members of the Armed Services Committee. These members, who had worked in a bipartisan way in committee and who wanted to have their ideas for improving the defense authorization bill considered by the House, were denied that opportunity, and among those amendments that were blocked by the Rules Committee is the ranking Republican member of the Armed Services Committee, for whom this bill is named.

At the same time we are applauding those committee members for their bipartisan work, the Rules Committee steps in and shuts down what has been an open, cooperative process by blocking so many Republican amendments.

Mr. Speaker, the House should recognize that when a committee works in an open and honest manner to produce a truly bipartisan bill, we should recognize that, especially because it has become a rarity in this Congress.

Despite the promises made by the Democrat leaders to run the most open and honest House in history, they have made it a matter of routine to close down debate, take away the ability of every Representative to offer amendments on the House floor, to defy rules,

and to ignore over 200 years of legislative precedents. Yet, Mr. Speaker, this House has never seen anything the likes of what the Democrat leaders did last night with the vote to override the President's veto of the farm bill.

Despite having full knowledge that the bill that the Speaker of the House certified with her signature and sent to the President was not the exact same bill that passed both the House and the Senate, Democrat leaders deliberately acted to have this House vote on overriding the President's veto. The bill that the Speaker sent to the President completely omitted title III of the farm bill. This is the entire trade section that runs several dozen pages.

It has been asserted that deletion of this title from the farm bill that the Speaker sent to the President was simply a mistake, an oversight, or a technical error. That may very well be. That may very well be, Mr. Speaker. Yet Democrat leaders deliberately acted yesterday to have the House vote to override a Presidential veto on a bill that the House had never, ever passed. They took this action in direct contradiction to the simple procedures established in article I, section 7 of the United States Constitution.

Mr. Speaker, like many of my colleagues, I have often spoken to elementary and high school students about my job as a Congressman and how Congress works. The most fundamental lesson I always convey is how a bill becomes law in this Congress. It's very simple. The House and the Senate must pass the exact same bill. It must be exact. No comma difference. When they do that, the bill is sent to the President to be signed into law or vetoed and returned to the Congress.

Mr. Speaker, this did not happen with the farm bill. The bill passed by both the House and the Senate was not the bill that the Speaker of the House signed and sent to the President.

Mr. Speaker, last week I stood right here on the House floor and stated that while I believed that the farm bill was far from perfect, I would vote for the bill because of the positive provisions it included for specialty crop growers in my congressional district.

In my speech to the House and in my communications with my constituents, I specifically cited parts of the farm bill that helped convince me to vote to pass it. In particular, I spoke about the Market Access Program in reference to technical trade assistance for specialty crops, both of which help to break down unfair trade barriers and open new markets for farmers overseas. Both of these programs are part of title III of the farm bill which passed the House and Senate but was not sent to the President.

Mr. Speaker, the farm bill I voted for, and the very reasons I voted for it, was not the bill that the House voted to override yesterday.

Democrat leaders of this Congress acted in an unconstitutional way in voting to override the veto vote yesterday. That the leaders acted unconstitutionally is not a matter of my personal opinion, it is a matter that has been ruled upon by the United States Supreme Court. In a 6-3 majority opinion written by Justice Stevens in the 1998 line-item veto case, Clinton v. The City of New York, the court concluded, and I quote:

``The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 is a 500-page document that became Public Law 105-33 after three procedural steps were taken. One, a bill containing its exact text was approved by a majority of the Members of the House of Representatives. Two, the Senate approved precisely the same text. Three, that text was signed into law by the President. The Constitution explicitly requires that each of these three steps be taken before a bill may `become a law.' Article 1, section 7. If one paragraph of that text had been omitted at any one of those three stages, Public Law 105-33 would not have been validly enacted.''

Mr. Speaker, last night it wasn't until Republicans objected that the Democrat majority took any action to speak on the floor and inform the House of what had occurred by the omission of title III of the bill. The Democrat majority then responded, as they have for the past 16 months, by choosing the path of unilateral, partisan action over working in a bipartisan way. Keep in mind, this farm bill passed by over 300 votes in a bipartisan way.

As I stated at the beginning of my remarks, there are two parts to this rule. The first makes in order amendments to the defense authorization bill. The second provides blanket authority for any bill relating to agricultural programs to be considered under suspension of the House rules.

The inclusion of this blanket authority to suspend House rules and consider bills was not even discussed with Republicans. I say that with the knowledge I have as I speak here today, right now, at 10:39 a.m.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle will claim that this is simply an effort to fix the farm bill. Mr. Speaker, I voted for the farm bill and I support getting it enacted into law. But this isn't just about a fix or finding the most convenient or face-saving way to act on the farm bill. It's about following the Constitution and holding Democrat leaders accountable for their deliberate actions yesterday, Mr. Speaker.

They knew the bill they put to an override vote yesterday had never passed the House in the version that it was presented to us for the override, but they did it anyway. The House should not gloss over an incident of this magnitude with such serious constitutional violations.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the gentleman from California, I just want to make this point, and this is a very, very important point. Yesterday, prior to taking up the veto override of the farm bill, the Democrat leaders knew that title III was out of the bill. Therefore, it was not a bill that had passed either House. Therefore, the ultimate rule of this land, the Constitution, was violated.

It was at that point, Mr. Speaker, that there should have been discussions on how to remedy this in a way, but there was no discussions on that, at least with the leaders on our side. Yet we went ahead with the action of overriding a veto, overriding a bill that the House had not passed.

That is what the facts were yesterday, and it was not brought to the full House's attention until the leaders on our side stood up after the vote to ask what the procedures were for clarification. Had we known that ahead of time, we probably could have gone through regular order and got this resolved in such a way that would have been acceptable to all sides.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the namesake of the bill that we are debating later on, the Duncan Hunter Defense Authorization Act of 2009. The gentleman from California served as chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He has been somebody that I have looked up to in my years in Congress. He probably, if not the most knowledgable person in this House on military affairs, he is certainly one of the most.

I yield 3 minutes to my friend from California (Mr. Hunter).

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished ranking member of the Rules Committee (Mr. Dreier).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop), a member of the Armed Services Committee.

I yield the gentleman 30 additional seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), a former member of the Rules Committee and now a member of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).

For the purpose of a unanimous consent, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Broun).

(Mr. BROUN of Georgia asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I reserve my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona, a member of the Armed Services Committee, Mr. Franks.

I have numerous people that would like to speak, but I haven't got the time for that. If the gentleman would entertain an extension of time on both sides, I would be more than happy to allow my Members to speak. But I'm constrained for time.

So if the gentleman would allow me unanimous consent for some more, I would do that. But I will leave it up to the gentleman.

I am the last speaker under the regular time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. Speaker, I woke up today and heard on the news that oil is $137 a barrel on the worldwide market, and I think it's time for the House to debate ideas. I know there are a number of ideas in this House on lowering the cost of gasoline specifically.

So I'm going to ask my colleagues to vote to defeat the previous question so that this House can finally consider solutions to rising energy costs. When the previous question is defeated, I will move to add a section to the rule, not rewrite the entire rule. But that section would say it shall be in order to consider any amendment to the bill which the proponent asserts, if enacted, would have the effect of lowering the national average price per gallon of regular unleaded gasoline.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have the text of the amendment and extraneous material inserted into the Record prior to the previous question.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so we can now really have a dialogue on the rising price of energy in this country. I believe it's strongly the responsibility of the elected leaders of the people to take this issue up, and we will have this opportunity by defeating the previous question.

I yield back my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1218 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 1218.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 1218 provides for the further consideration of H.R. 5658, the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009, under a structured rule, without further general debate.

The rule makes in order 58 amendments submitted to the Rules Committee for consideration under this rule. The rule waives all points of order against the amendments printed in the committee report and amendments en bloc except those arising under clause 9 or 10 of rule XXI. The rule provides for one motion to recommit with or without instructions. The rule also provides that in the engrossment of H.R. 5658, the text of H.R. 6048, as passed by the House, shall be added at the end of H.R. 5658.

Finally, the rule allows the Speaker to entertain motions to suspend the rules through the legislative day of Thursday, May 22, 2008, relating to any measure pertaining to agricultural programs.

Mr. Speaker, this rule will allow the House to finish consideration of H.R. 5658, the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009. General debate on this measure concluded last night. This two-part process has been used over the years to ensure that the Rules Committee has ample time to consider amendments submitted to the committee. This year, 121 amendments were submitted for consideration.

As my friend from Florida (Mr. Hastings) said on the floor yesterday, the defense authorization bill is one of the most comprehensive and important pieces of legislation this House considers each year.

I salute the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Mr. Skelton, and Ranking Member Hunter for their hard work and cooperative effort in bringing this piece of legislation to the floor. Their bill passed the Armed Services Committee by a vote of 61-0, a testament to their bipartisan efforts and desire to ensure our Armed Forces have all the tools they need to maintain our national security and to provide our servicemembers in harm's way with the best gear and force protection possible.

America has the finest military in the world, Mr. Speaker. Unfortunately, the Bush administration's policies in Iraq have depleted our great military, put a tremendous strain on our troops, and dropped the Army's readiness to unprecedented levels.

H.R. 5658 takes us in a new direction. It will help restore our Nation's military readiness and protect our troops in harm's way. This bill supports our troops and their families by giving the military a pay raise larger than was requested by the President and prohibiting TRICARE fee increases. It focuses on the war in Afghanistan. It also includes Iraq policy provisions that ban permanent bases in Iraq and require the Iraqi Government to pay its fair share of reconstruction costs.

In the spirit of maintaining the committee agreement and the overwhelming bipartisan support for this bill and to further ensure that our military is fully prepared and our troops get the benefits they deserve, the Rules Committee has made in order 58 amendments for consideration on the floor today. These are amendments that the Rules Committee and the Armed Services Committee determined would not disrupt the bill's carefully negotiated content and warranted further consideration.

In addition, this rule also allows the Speaker to bring up under suspension of the rules any measure pertaining to agricultural programs.

As we all know and we heard on the floor yesterday, an unintentional clerical error occurred prior to the enrollment of the farm bill. As a result, the President did not receive the full bill. The distinguished majority leader, Mr. Hoyer, has been working to remedy this situation so the President may receive the full bill for his consideration.

As a result, if a resolution is reached, and I do not know the status of the negotiations between Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Boehner, the resulting end product will be brought to the floor without further delay so that we may complete nearly 2 years of effort and deliver once and for all on the promises we made long ago to America's farmers and ranchers.

In the meantime I must remind our colleagues that the current farm bill extension is set to expire unless we act today. Whether a resolution is reached in the coming days or how we resolve this clerical error, we must, Mr. Speaker, extend the current farm bill and this rule will simply allow that to occur.

Much will be made of this rule by my friends on the other side of the aisle, but I will remind them that any farm bill measure that may come before the House today will come up under suspension of the rules. That means that two-thirds of the House must support any suspension bill in order for it to pass the House. That further means that there will be no political gamesmanship and we must have a strong bipartisan vote in order to pass any bill that reaches the floor.

The farm bill conference report has overwhelming bipartisan support. It passed this House with 318 votes. It passed the Senate with 81 votes. It represents the tireless effort of many Members, including myself, and is far too important to fail, Mr. Speaker, especially in light of what was an unintended clerical error.

This rule ensures swift passage of a bipartisan defense bill and a remedy to our already passed bipartisan farm bill, and I demand that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle support the rule.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I would just like to say to my friend and the gentleman from Washington State that his claim that it was never brought before the House is simply not the facts. I was on the floor. I heard Mr. Peterson announce to the floor that in fact there had been an error yesterday during the debate for the override. In fact, Mr. Peterson said that he had been discussing with Mr. Goodlatte the situation and how to remedy it. In fact, Mr. Hoyer acknowledged it on the floor.

There has been no glossing over this. Mr. Hoyer readily acknowledged on the floor last night that there was a clerical error about this. Certainly we are concerned about how to remedy this. That is why we are bringing this rule to the floor. We are also concerned that the farm bill expires. We have brought a resolution to the floor that allows for a bipartisan compromise that would fix that situation.

We are trying to solve problems here today. We are trying to do right by our military, we are trying to do right by our farmers, and we are doing it in a manner that would require, with regard to the farmers, at least, a two-thirds vote of this House to resolve the problem.

So, Mr. Speaker, I would submit that we are doing everything possible to remedy this situation, and we are doing it in a bipartisan manner.

With that, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui), a member of the Rules Committee, a leader in the farm bill debate, and a great friend.

Mr. Speaker, with regard to the comments we just heard from our distinguished former chairman of the committee, while a lot of us have sympathy for the amendment that the gentleman put forward, it is my understanding that no defense contractor currently can meet the requirements of that 85 percent. So that is an issue that is bigger than just simply this bill. It probably needs to be dealt with in the Armed Services Committee so they can decide the proper course of action, and it was not ruled in order for that reason.

Mr. Speaker, I would now like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson), the chairman of the Agriculture Committee.

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. Speaker, how much time do we have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson) to respond to Mr. Dreier's remarks.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York, a gentleman who worked tirelessly on the farm bill and who has worked tirelessly on behalf of defense matters, my good friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Arcuri).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland, the distinguished majority leader, Mr. Hoyer.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to commend the gentleman from Maryland for giving us an incredibly articulate, accurate, and statesmanlike presentation.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve.

Mr. Speaker, in reference to the gentleman from Arizona, I would certainly like to say he's certainly been bipartisan in his offering of striking of earmarks. He's offered them in the past on both sides, and I will acknowledge that the gentleman has talked to the majority leader and it will be under discussion.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire from the gentleman from Washington if he has any remaining speakers.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot entertain a motion on unanimous consent to extend. We've been debating this for longer than the allotted period of time already.

I reserve my time.

Mr. Speaker, I will let the numbers speak for themselves.

The bipartisan defense bill passed through the committee by a vote of 61-0. Fifty-eight amendments were made in order in the spirit of maintaining that bipartisan vote. The bipartisanship that was exhibited on the farm bill and the farm bill vote was 318 ayes, and 81 in the Senate voted ``aye.''

However you look at it, the facts remain that these overwhelmingly bipartisan measures deserve and demand our strongest support. I encourage the House to vote in the affirmative.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and on the previous question.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Hastings of Washington is as follows:

Amendment to H. Res. 1218 Offered by Mr. Hastings of Washington

At the end of the resolution. add the following:

Sec. 9. Notwithstanding any other provision of this

resolution or the operation of the previous question, it

shall be in order to consider any amendment to the bill which

the proponent asserts, if enacted, would have the effect of

lowering the national average price per gallon of regular

unleaded gasoline. Such amendments shall he considered as

read, shall be debatable for thirty minutes equally divided

and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be

subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand

for division of the question in the House or in the Committee

of the Whole. All points of order against such amendments are

waived except those arising under clause 9 of rule XXI. For

purposes of compliance with clause 9(a)(3) of rule XXI, a

statement submitted for printing in the Congressional Record

by the proponent of such amendment prior to its consideration

shall have the same effect as a statement actually printed.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to talk about some important legislation that honors the sacrifice and courage of our women who have served and are currently serving in our armed forces.

The Veteran's legislation we considered today provides an opportunity for each of us, regardless of political views, religion, ethnicity, gender, or background to come together, and to recognize and honor our Nation's heroes.

We gather here today, in the midst of ongoing conflict and warfare, to celebrate the dedication of our men and women in uniform. Though we may be divided by our positions on the war in Iraq, we stand together to support our veterans. Our Nation has a proud legacy of appreciation and commitment to the men and women who have worn the uniform in defense of this country. We must be united in seeing that every soldier, sailor, airman, and marine is welcomed back with all the care and compassion this grateful Nation can bestow.

All too many of our veterans are left without the help and support they need to transition from the horrors they bravely face on the front lines of battle to successful civilian life. According to the Veterans Affairs Department, as of 2006, on any given night, 196,000 veterans of all ages were homeless.

The V.A. also reports 400 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone have already become homeless, and this figure only takes into account those who have sought services from V.A.-sponsored programs. Experts have predicted that the trauma resulting from the extreme horrors of these modern wars could lead to a surge in homeless veterans in the coming years.

I chose to celebrate one of our heroic daughters of Texas, Specialist Monica L. Brown of the United States Army with House Concurrent Resolution 320 for her efforts earlier this year.

Spec. Brown was the first woman in Afghanistan and only the second female soldier since World War II to receive the Silver Star, the Nation's third-highest medal for valor. This solider from Lake Jackson, Texas is only 19 years old.

On April 25, 2007, Specialist Brown was part of a four-vehicle convoy patrolling near

Jani Kheil in the eastern province of Paktia on April 25, 2007, when a bomb struck one of the Humvees.

When Spec. Brown saw her fellow soldiers were injured, she grabbed her aid bag and started running toward the burning vehicle as insurgents opened fire. All five wounded soldiers from her platoon scrambled out. Under this commotion, she assessed her patients and moved them to a safer location because they were still receiving incoming fire.

The Pentagon's official policy is to prohibit women from serving in front-line combat roles in the infantry, armor or artillery, but the nature of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with no real front lines, has seen women soldiers take part in close-quarters combat more than previous conflicts.

According to the army four Army nurses in World War II were the first women to receive the Silver Star, though three nurses serving in World War I were awarded the medal posthumously in 2007. Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, of Nashville, Tenn., was the first to receive the Silver Star in 2005 along with two fellow male soldiers for her gallantry during an insurgent ambush on a convoy in Iraq.

The Army has stated that Spec. Brown's ``bravery, unselfish actions and medical aid rendered under fire saved the lives of her comrades and represents the finest traditions of heroism in combat.''

Though I have opposed the war in Iraq from its inception, I remain absolutely committed to ensuring that we recognize, celebrate, and honor the service of our sons and daughters returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Our troops in Iraq did everything we asked them to do, and I firmly believe that we must commend the men and women of our military for their exemplary performance and success in Iraq.

I am proud to be a cosponsor on H. Res. 1054--Honoring the service and achievements of women in the Armed Forces and female veterans (Representative Davis (CA)--Armed Services) and H.R. 3819--Veterans Emergency Care Fairness Act of 2007 (Representative Space--Veterans' Affairs).

We are providing for our Veterans with legislation such as:

H.R. 6081--The Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax Act of 2008 (Representative Rangel--Ways and Means).

H. Res. 986--Recognizing the courage and sacrifice of those members of the United States Armed Forces who were held as prisoners of war during the Vietnam conflict and calling for a full accounting of the 1,729 members of the Armed Forces who remain unaccounted for from the Vietnam conflict (Representative Boehner--Armed Services)--Recorded Vote

H.R. 2790--To establish the position of Director of Physician Assistant Services within the office of the Under Secretary of Veterans Affairs for Health as amended (Representative Hare--Veterans' Affairs).

H.R. 3681--Veterans Benefits Awareness Act of 2007 (Representative Boozman--Veterans' Affairs).

H.R. 3889--To require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to conduct a longitudinal study of the vocational rehabilitation programs administered by the Secretary (Representative Boozman--Veterans' Affairs)--Passed

H.R. 5554--Veterans Substance Use Disorders Prevention and Treatment Act of 2008 (Representative Michaud--Veterans' Affairs)--Passed

H.R. 5664--To direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to update at least once every six years the plans and specifications for specially adapted housing furnished to veterans by the Secretary (Representative Rodriguez--Veterans' Affairs).

H.R. 5826--Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2008 (Representative Rodriguez--Veterans' Affairs)--Recorded Vote

H.R. 5856--Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Facility Authorization and Lease Act of 2008 (Representative Michaud--Veterans' Affairs).

H.R. 6048--To amend the Service members Civil Relief Act to provide for the protection of child custody arrangements for parents who are members of the Armed Forces deployed in support of a contingency operation (Representative Turner--Veterans' Affairs).

I firmly believe that we should celebrate our veterans after every conflict, and I remain committed, as a Member of Congress, to both meeting the needs of veterans of previous wars, and to provide a fitting welcome home to those who are now serving. Veterans have kept their promise to serve our Nation; they have willingly risked their lives to protect the country we all love. We must now ensure that we keep our promises to our veterans.

Currently, there are over 25 million veterans in the United States. There are more than 1,633,000 veterans living in Texas and more than 32,000 veterans living in my congressional district alone. I hope we will all take the time to show appreciation to those who have answered the call to duty. As Winston Churchill famously stated, ``Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.''

Madam Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting our troops of yesteryear and our troops of today.