Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to rise today to talk about an American hero, a hero from San Diego, California, Billy Casper, one of the great athletes to ever stride the greens and fairways of America's golf courses and compete in national and international tournaments with a great successful record, but also one of the greatest family men and greatest husbands, greatest father, greatest grandfathers who ever had a family in San Diego or helped a community or did all of the great things that Billy Casper has done.

I have got my friend, Mr. Issa, to talk with me a little bit about Billy Casper. But Billy Casper was a great golfer. And he is celebrating, we are celebrating here, his first victory which was the LaBatt Open in Canada. I think he was 22 years old at the time.

I think he had at that time had married Shirley, who was his high school sweetheart from Chula Vista, and he followed that victory, the LaBatt Open, with some 50 more PGA professional victories, including two U.S. Opens and a Masters.

You know, people once said, Mr. Speaker, I know you coming from Long Beach, and then ultimately the entire State of California as our former Attorney General, you knew about Billy Casper, because he was a guy who was

called by Johnny Miller, as the guy who had the greatest set of hands in golf, meaning one of the greatest touches.

He had what I think is the most memorable come-from-behind victory in the history of major golf in 1966, when he demonstrated those great hands when he was 7 shots behind the great Arnold Palmer in the closing 9 holes of the U.S. Open, 1966, playing at Olympic Country Club in San Francisco, and Billy Casper closed out with a 32 on the back 9 at Olympic, which is nearly miraculous.

He tied Arnold Palmer and he beat him the next day in a playoff with a 69. Now, they had The Big Three of Golf, Mr. Speaker. It was called Player, Palmer and Nicklaus. They needed the Big Three because between 1964 and 1970, they needed all three of their tournament victories added together to have more than Billy Casper because he had 4 more victories during that period than the great Jack Nicklaus, and he had more victories than Arnie and Gary Player together.

It is neat to be here with Mr. Issa from San Diego and talk about this American hero, this San Diego sports hero, Billy Casper.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa).

I thank Mr. Issa for his contribution here, because Billy Casper has not only touched the hearts or touch the minds and memories of lots of sports writers and people who read those sports pages when he was amassing those 51 professional victories, but he touched the hearts of so many young people. And he and Shirley, his wonderful wife, have hearts as big as the 18th green at San Diego Country Club, and they have touched the lives of literally thousands and thousands of young people through the scholarship funds that they put together, through all the help they put together through Billy's annual tournament.

If you walk up to Billy Casper on the golf course, here is a guy who won a couple U.S. Opens and the Masters and a guy who lives in this era where sports idols charge money for their autographs. Billy Casper will stop what he is doing, he will look you in the eye, and if you are a young person he will really pay a lot of attention to you. He and Shirley are absolutely the greatest examples of what families should be like in this country. So it is neat to be here with my great colleague Darryl Issa and talk a little bit about this American hero, Billy Casper.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding, and I think it is appropriate to recall the days of Normandy.

The gentleman said those days when the world waited to find out whether or not that very difficult mission would be successful, and you know, the theme I think that we should take from Normandy or the message from Normandy was that our soldiers came not to conquer but to liberate. That is consistent with the American theme throughout the last century, and it is consistent with the theme that is being carried out by about 130,000 men and women in the sands of the Iraqi desert right now.

And that is, that all the wars that we fought in the last century, wars in which we lost 619,000 Americans killed in action on the battlegrounds and the oceans and the airways of the various wars, we did not conquer, we did not covet land. When we won the Spanish American War, we gave back Cuba and the Philippines, gave them their freedom. When we went to save Europe the first time, we gave back all that ground that had been hard won by the Marines at Bellawood and by the U.S. Army and so many difficult battles. In World War II, having liberated Europe a second time in that century, we gave back all that land that had been so dearly won.

And today, in Iraq, we are not engaged in military operations so that we can somehow derive material benefits from that country or somehow enslave the inhabitants of that country and turn them toward our political benefit and our economic benefit.

We do it because we think that it is in the interests of the United States to spread freedom, to change the world, and I think lots of Americans understand that if we do not change the world, the world is going to change us.

Those heroes who have won now some 45,000 Bronze Stars for meritorious service and for valor in the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan I think are every bit as courageous and, in many cases, are related to and the descendants of those incredible people who climbed the cliffs at Normandy and went up those beaches.

Some of those landing craft opened up and the Americans were machine gunned before they could get out of the craft, and there were men bobbing in those waves, some of them dead before they hit the water. Others got to the beach and went down, and you can see the dramatic newsreels that show Americans falling as they are taking that beach, and then still others got to the base of the cliffs, and then some scaled those cliffs.

Of course, we had others that came in, paratroopers, some of whom landed in dug-in positions that the enemy had established and were killed before their chutes could reach the ground. Others that went in in gliders, not an avocation that is conducive to longevity, and others simply went in the old-fashioned way, but they went in for freedom. They went in for America, and they liberated, and that is the theme of Normandy.

I thank my colleague for yielding this time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Oklahoma for his great work on behalf of the men and women who wear the uniform and for his work on this bill, and all the members for the work on this bill.

I just say to my great colleague from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), we did put this bill together in a bipartisan fashion, and we did entertain this amendment in the House Committee on the Armed Services. And the point is that we came out of the committee with a very carefully crafted bill in which we are trying to incentivize military families to use mail order; and so we took down the cost of mail order pharmaceuticals to guess what, zero; both generic and formulary drugs down to zero. They do not pay a dime.

Now they win when they get these prescriptions through the mail, and the taxpayers win because the costs are much less. That means you do not even have the cost of transportation to go down to pick up that particular prescription. So we took those down to zero.

The other thing we did that was a remarkable thing, that really completed this transition of recognizing the National Guard, is we moved the availability of TRICARE not just to National Guardsmen, who heretofore were given TRICARE for an extended period of time before they mobilized and for an extended period of time after they mobilized, but we then moved it to all National Guardsmen who are drilling reservists, all National Guardsmen, and with only a copayment of 28 percent of the costs.

So this is a monumental bill that has moved billions of dollars of medical benefits to these great people who wear the uniform of the United States.

Let me just say to my colleagues, this is a bipartisan bill. The gentleman from Oklahoma is absolutely right. We did all the right things, and that is why it passed by a vote of 60-1.

No one has more respect for the gentleman from Missouri than myself. We did consider his amendment in the committee, and the provision that his amendment dealt with is a part of this balance of trying to move people to

buy their pharmaceuticals through the mail, because if they buy them through the mail, it does not cost them a dime. For that reason, I think the committee bill is an excellent bill.

It is tough to get to less than zero, and I would hope that everyone would simply support this bill, let us move ahead, let us get it to conference, and let us do the right thing for the men and women who wear the uniform.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, let me say to my good friend who just spoke and talked about the need to shore up energy supplies for our country, I agree with him totally. And I agree with the idea that we should not have to rely on that lifeline of petroleum coming out of the Middle East, which has security ramifications.

Let me say to my friend that opening up a piece of land that is as big as a third of the United States, that is, Alaska, a third of the size of the continental United States, would go a long way toward doing that. The amount of petroleum that we could be getting from one of our own States within our own boundaries without having to depend on that lifeline would accrue to the national security.

I say to the gentleman, I think it is a sad thing that the majority of his party has not seen fit to do that. We are pursuing lots of alternative forms of energy, but one problem with this particular amendment is, it would take the money out of missile defense. I know the gentleman is worried about the prospect of ballistic missiles that are being tested by countries in the Middle East, that are being tested to ranges that will include Israel, for example, and at some point, certain locations in the United States.

So there are two aspects to these amendments. One is what you do; and the other is where you pull the money from. The other part of that story is where you pull the money from.

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think that is a thoughtful statement. I think that what we have seen, regrettably, from the gentleman's party, from the Democrat side, has been a series of ``noes'' to initiatives that would have increased the supply of petroleum.

The amount of increase in petroleum that we have undertaken in the last 4 or 5 years would have, by the projections I have seen, have been made up by oil which could have come from, for example, Alaska which is a third of the size of the United States.

So when the gentleman's party effectively closed down Alaska for supplying petroleum, a large piece of Alaska for supplying petroleum from the northern sector, that deprived us of an enormous supply of petroleum which would have had a direct effect on the price at the pump.

Further, the gentleman knows it takes about 10 years to permit a refinery. The gentleman is an expert in this. The gentleman knows the way we get low prices in this country for any commodity is competition.

That means if you are baking bread on one side of the street for $2 a loaf, and I come across from the other side of the street and I can bake it for a buck a loaf, I win and the consumers win. If you takes you 10 years to get a permit for your bakery, you never get into the competition and the price of bread never comes down.

And if it takes you 10 years to permit a refinery because of environmental restrictions that the Democratic Party will not let go of, you never see that oil coming on line and you never see that competition from another refinery. It is a debate.

But on the point of funding, the idea that you can just harvest a third of a billion dollars out of missile defense and that is not going to have any effect on the program because you think that money is not needed right now, we will have other parts of the program, the missile defense program, that needs more money. As the gentleman knows, when you have hundreds of programs, some of them need money, some of them can give up money at any given time.

The idea that this missile defense, which is necessary to protect both our troops in theater, who have been fired upon and killed in some cases by low-end ballistic missiles, like the Scuds that were used against us in the first Gulf War, and countries like Israel that need to have defense that see their neighbors right now developing ballistic missiles that will come in high and fast into those countries; the idea of forcing our Members to choose between defending their troops and having a new technological program on petroleum innovations, in my estimation, this is something that is a subject for judgment. We have exercised our judgment.

I think we have done a good job in the committee. I think we have put together a good bill in the committee. It passed out 60-1. I think that is testament to the fact that we have a balanced package and we need to move forward.

I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to, once again, echo my great respect for my partner on this committee, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), and just offer that one thing we have done in this package is to take down the cost of pharmaceutical drugs to zero for those enlisted

families if they simply get them through the mail; and they can now get a 90-day supply rather than a 30-day supply, and that is what we are trying to incentivize them to do. It is better for them. They have got no cost of transportation to go pick up their medicine, and it is better for the taxpayers. And that is the direction that we are trying to take our military families.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. No one has more respect for the gentleman from New York than I. I just want to remind my colleagues that we had a vote on the gentleman's amendment in committee, and we did put it in, and it was an amendment to a provision that we put into the bill that was, I thought, an excellent provision; I think, most members of the committee agreed.

I think that is reflected by the 60-1 vote that ultimately discharged the bill, agreed with, that was what it said, that chaplains of all faiths, all faiths, would be allowed to pray according to the dictates of their own conscience.

Now, I know you can add a word or two or a comma or a change of phrase, and the effect of a small group of words can have 60 different interpretations by various members of the committee.

But the provision that we left with, because I think there has been a concern that we have commanders, I think there is concern that chaplains be allowed to pray according to the dictates of their own conscience. We asserted in a positive statement that they would be able to do that.

That was something I think most members agreed with. In fact, they did agree with it on a bipartisan basis. The gentleman offered a change to that, and that was rejected. So I just want my colleagues to know that we thought, and I think today, that a statement that says that all chaplains, no matter what faith, are able to pray according to the dictates of their own conscience. It is a statement of fairness and serves the military well.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 5122.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 4 of House Resolution 811, as the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, I request that during further consideration of H.R. 5122 in the Committee of the Whole, and following consideration of en bloc packages numbers one and two, the following amendments be considered in the following order:

Amendment No. 8 printed in House Report 109-461;

Amendment No. 15 printed in House Report 109-461;

Amendment No. 16 printed in House Report 109-461;

Amendment No. 6 printed in House Report 109-461;

Amendment No. 7 printed in House Report 109-461;

Amendment No. 9 printed in House Report 109-461;

Amendment No. 13 printed in House Report 109-461;

Amendment No. 10 printed in House Report 109-461;

Amendment No. 22 printed in House Report 109-461;

Amendment No. 18 printed in House Report 109-461;

Amendment No. 11 printed in House Report 109-461;

Amendment No. 12 printed in House Report 109-461;

Amendment No. 14 printed in House Report 109-461;

Amendment No. 23 printed in House Report 109-461;

Amendment No. 21 printed in House Report 109-461.

Mr. Chairman, I offer amendments en bloc.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Baca's amendment requires the Department of Defense to study the scope of perchlorate contamination at formerly utilized defense sites.

Mr. Castle's amendment implements GAO's recommendations to cut down and award an incentive fee spending waste by requiring the Department to develop a strategy for linking incentives to specific outcomes such as meeting costs, schedule and capability goals. It also establishes guidance for improving the effectiveness of award and incentive fees, and ensures that appropriate approving officials are overseeing these decisions. The Department would be required to report to Congress on the status and effectiveness of these new standards.

The amendment offered by Mr. Davis is the defense access road amendment; and this program, which is known as the DAR program, currently allows DOD to pay for road projects made necessary by DOD actions, and this amendment would allow DOD to consider transit projects as part of DAR as well.

Mr. Schiff's amendment directs the Secretary of Defense to submit to Congress a series of regular reports on the threat to American personnel posed by IEDs, improvised explosive devices, as well as action being taken to interdict IEDs and to develop more effective active and passive countermeasures. The first report would be due 30 days after enactment, the subsequent reports every 90 days thereafter. Reports would be unclassified, with a classified annex if necessary.

Mr. Chairman, the committee supports these amendments, and let me just say with respect to the last amendment, that the committee works every day on the IED issue, and we communicate with DOD every day on operations and on the development of the countermeasure systems that we are currently undertaking to rush to the battlefield. So I very much appreciate the gentleman's concern. I think that IEDs, and I am sure he shares this concern, are an instrument of choice now by terrorists, and this is probably the most compelling challenge facing us in the warfighting theaters and in the global war against terror right now.

We work this issue every single day. We have got a new package of equipment that we are moving out, and we have added $109 million to this countermeasure fund this year. We are going to try to move that up, even if we have to move money out of the various services, and we are going to work this problem every day. So I invite the gentleman to work with us and work with our staff, and I think these reports will be value added to the process. I thank the gentleman from California for his work.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I thank the gentleman for his contribution, and let me just lay out some of things that we are doing because I think this area is so important for us. Included in the base bill, the gentleman from Missouri and myself and our great members of the committee on both sides of the aisle worked out, we added $109.7 million for jammers. Jammers are very important in this IED business because these improvised explosive devices are largely detonated remotely.

As the gentleman knows, few of them, some of them, are detonated by wires that are connected to detonators, and you may have an insurgent hiding 20, 30, 40, 50 yards from the roadside or from the dismounted U.S. military unit and he detonates it with a clacker or a detonation device in the style that has been utilized by militaries up to the last several years ago.

The other detonation device, and one that is now the device of choice, is a remote detonation, and that detonation

allows a person, the insurgent, to be many yards away, far away from the particular avenue that he is ambushing. In many cases, he does not even need to have a weapon. He may be lost in a crowd, and he waits for a convoy to line up on a particular lamp post or other object, and he blows this device, which may be a 152-millimeter artillery round by using this remote detonation capability. Without getting into the classified areas, there are a number of remote detonation capabilities, and what we are trying to do is to direct our countermeasures to be able to jam those detonations.

So we have put a lot of extra money in. The administration has a lot of money in, but we have put in more. We have been working on equipment packages with them, and the key is to move this stuff through the training ranges here, the testing ranges, quickly into the field; and I can assure the gentleman we are really going to be working on this. So I thank him so much for his focus on this important area, and we will work together.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to say to my colleague from California that he has brought an excellent amendment to the floor here, and this is certainly something that does require action, justifies action by the Federal Government, and we totally support his amendment on this side.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. Chairman, I offer amendments en bloc.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me offer the description of the amendments.

Mr. Chabot's amendment expresses a sense of Congress that the spouses of armed services members who have died between October 7, 2001, and November 23, 2003, should be permitted to have the option of assigning their SBP payments, their survivor payments, to their children.

Mr. Davis' amendment is another defense access road amendment. This amendment would allow DOD to consider transit projects, as well, as part of the DAR, the Defense Access Road program.

Mr. Ryan of Ohio's amendment authorizes $5 million for the High Altitude Airship program. The HAA is designed to be an uninhabited, long-endurance, platform for carrying forward-based sensors and a wide range of other BMD payloads that will enable continuous over-horizon communication. It would also provide wide-area surveillance and protection without interruption or the risk associated with manned aircraft. The offsets are $5 million from the Space Based Space Surveillance program, and this is another tool for sensor and surveillance capability.

The amendment offered by Ms. Slaughter requires the Department of Defense to include the number of disciplinary actions as part of the annual report on sexual assault in the military.

So those are brief definitions or descriptions of these amendments.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of our time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot).

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for bringing this to our attention. There are no more important citizens than those who defend our freedom and carry our flag; and right there with them are their family members.

I think this is an excellent amendment, and the committee supports it fully.

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

Mr. Chairman, it is especially appropriate to be able to follow the gentleman from El Paso, Mr. Reyes, who was in my estimation the greatest Border Patrol chief in the history of our country. He did a tremendous job under very challenging odds.

I remember working with him long before he became a Representative in the most southern areas of Texas and then ultimately up in the El Paso area. One thing that challenged him and challenged us in San Diego in more recent times was tunneling. Of course, detection of tunnels is something that the military engages in every now and

then, and that is a good example of candidate technologies for sharing of technology between DOD and the Department of Homeland Security.

Likewise, surveillance sensors, it has always been a pleasure to go down with the gentleman from El Paso, go down to his district with Joint Task Force 6 and look at that interaction. And I really appreciate Mr. Dent coming up with this amendment that will move to mesh these technologies and make sure that when the American taxpayers pay for the development of something that will accrue to the benefit of our security, that it gets shared and gets moved across what is sometimes kind of a bright line between the military and the Department of Homeland Security.

You have done a great job and thank you for bringing this amendment to our attention. We support it fully.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I have a colloquy with the gentlewoman from Colorado (Mrs. Musgrave). I would yield to the gentlewoman for purposes of the colloquy.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentlewoman's concerns. First, I strongly believe that DOD should make every effort to acquire property through fair-market value purchases from willing sellers. The use of eminent domain or unfriendly condemnation should only be used as a measure of last resort in cases of compelling national security requirements.

So I would be very pleased to work with the gentlewoman as a representative of the farmers and ranchers surrounding Pinon Canyon to ensure that the Army does not use eminent domain before exhausting all other options.

Secondly, I would note that the defense bill before us today contains a provision that makes sure that Congress has oversight of DOD plans to use eminent domain, as its application is a matter of great concern to all of us.

Finally, I would be happy to work with the Colorado delegation to talk to the Army and ensure that they are very forthcoming in discussing plans for the expansion of Pinon Canyon. Having a good relationship with our communities is an important obligation of the armed services, and they should certainly sit down with their elected representatives and discuss their plans and any issues that will concern the community.

I will be happy to help the gentlewoman on this issue.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman and the gentlewoman for their contribution here, and just assure them we are very interested in making sure that this equipment, some of which has been wearing out pretty quickly in the desert sand in the warfighting theaters, is maintained in excellent condition, both with our great in- house resources and our depots and with the private sector, so we use all of our resources in the U.S. to make sure we have got good, sound platforms.

The committee has no objection to the amendment. We thank you for adding it to the base bill.

Mr. Chairman, I offer amendments en bloc.

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

Mr. Speaker, in the Schakowsky amendment, the gentlewoman from Illinois provides for additional oversight and accountability of Department of Defense contractors deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would make retroactive DOD regulations for contractors issued in October 2005 on previously issued contracts upon any extension brought about by an option.

It would implement a policy for conducting comprehensive background checks on foreign nationals hired by contractors operating outside of the U.S. and would also require a DOD Inspector General report on contractor overcharges and require that there are sufficient contracting officers assigned to oversee and monitor contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The amendment offered by Mr. Jindal would require the Secretary of Defense in coordination with the Secretary of Homeland Security and State governments to develop detailed operational plans regarding the use of the Armed Forces to support activities of civil authorities known as Defense Support to Civil Authorities Missions.

The amendment that is offered by Mr. Lewis of Kentucky would provide that no more than 20 percent of a uniformed servicemember's paycheck can be garnished in a single pay period to recover overpayments that have occurred through no fault of the servicemember. That was always my contention.

It would also provide a 90-day grace period before overpayment recovery can begin from servicemembers who are wounded or injured or who incur an illness in a combat operation or combat zone.

Finally, the Mica amendment offered by the gentleman from Florida expresses the sense of Congress that the Department of Defense should provide compensation to American veterans who are captured while in service to the United States Armed Forces on the peninsula of Bataan or the island of Corregidor, survived the Bataan Death March during World War II and have not received previous compensation provided to other prisoners of war.

I might just say about that amendment, Mr. Chairman, these great Americans came back and met with many of us over the last several years, these great survivors of the Bataan Death March. And many of them, according to their testimony, were taken by ship after the death march in which many of them were killed, bayoneted, decapitated, otherwise killed; they were taken to Japan and in many cases were turned over to Japanese industry, including companies that are corporate giants today like Matsui and Mitsubishi. And these Japanese corporations took the Americans as slaves from the Japanese Government. They turned them over to them as POWs. And they put them in slave labor operations, in many cases involving mines, for example, that were considered to be unsafe for Japanese workers. They would push the Americans into those mines.

I can recall some of the Americans testifying when they came back and met with us on the Hill about the brutality that took place. The time one of our great survivors of the Bataan Death March from California had a rock fall on him in a cave-in in this unsafe mine that they were working in as slaves to these corporations, and his leg was crushed by a rock. And an American doctor who was also a POW operated on that Bataan Death March survivor with a single rusty razor blade and the anesthetic was to have the biggest guy in the POW camp knock him out before they did the operation, and then they used maggots to clean the wound. And that great American was back here testifying a couple of years ago to the U.S. Congress.

Those POWs sought redress from the corporations which had used them as slaves in their operations saying we want to be paid for this work that we performed as slave labor. The corporations resisted this mightily in a series of lawsuits. And I thought it was sad that the U.S. Government intervened on the opposite side, on the other side from the American POWs, claiming that the treaty that was signed after the war essentially eliminated any rights on behalf of the POWs other than the one dollar a day that they received as compensation for their POW status.

So those great Americans did not win. They ultimately faced summary judgments in American courts and received no compensation from these massive corporations. In fact, some of the biggest corporations in the world which when they enslaved these Americans were not nationalized by the Japanese Government, but in fact remain private corporations and developed a lot of their operations or carried on a lot of their operations using American slave labor.

So the lawsuits were quashed and these Americans, those that still survive, never got any redress. So I would just say that Mr. Mica's amendment particularly struck a cord with this member of the Armed Services Committee, and I would recommend that all these amendments be supported.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I will be brief.

But I just want to say about Sonny Montgomery, I miss Sonny Montgomery. I can still see him in the House Chamber, and I can see him in the Armed Services Committee where he sat with us, and I can see him walking into the prayer breakfast.

I am not a regular, but I happened to be there that morning, and he walked in when Floyd Spence was having a double lung operation. Sonny would read the casualty roll, just like a soldier, and he said I have got news about Floyd and a hush fell over the breakfast. There were about 30 Members there, Democrat and Republicans, and we thought he would tell us that Floyd Spence had passed away.

Sonny did kind of a double-take at his notes, and he said Floyd just got married. Apparently, he had gotten married coming out of this double lung transplant operation a few minutes afterwards, and lived many happy years after that.

But Sonny Montgomery was a spark of life in this Chamber. He was a great representative for the tradition of the military, Mr. National Guard. There is no question in the world you could posit to Sonny Montgomery and no statement you could make as a witness before the Armed Services Committee that it would not evoke from Sonny Montgomery, what would this mean for the National Guard? I do not care what the issue was, he managed to turn it into a Guard question.

What a great, great American. He served in World War II and had that great feeling for our military, and he is in tough shape right now.

But I have seen the gentleman's amendment to make this the Sonny Montgomery bill. How fitting and appropriate that we do that. Sonny is

still alive, and I know that we usually do this for Members that have passed on; but Sonny is still alive and I say, good, and let us do this. And I thank the gentleman from Mississippi for bringing this up.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Mississippi on two counts, first for his offering the amendment on behalf of Sonny Montgomery, and secondly, for this IED amendment.

I just want to tell the gentleman that we have just tested today a new equipment package that has great potential, that we should be able to move into theater that hopefully will be able to be used in dismounted form and mounted form and that could be used on virtually every vehicle that moves out of base camp or out of forward bases.

I think this is absolutely the number one causation of casualties in the theater in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now that the IED has become the weapon of choice for insurgents, it is going to be used in other battlefields around the world. So our ability, our agility to move new technology through the process quickly and get it fielded is paramount, and this amendment helps to do that.

I want to thank the gentleman for the value he has added to the bill by offering this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I submit the following letters for the Congressional Record.

House of Representatives,

Committee on Energy and Commerce,

Washington, DC, May 9, 2006.

Hon. Duncan Hunter,

Chairman, Committee on Armed Services,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Hunter: On May 5, 2006, the Committee on

Armed Services ordered reported H.R. 5122, the National

Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. As ordered

reported by the Committee on Armed Services, this legislation

contains a number of provisions that fall within the,

jurisdiction of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. These

provisions include the following:

Sec. 312. Munitions Disposal in Ocean Waters

Sec. 313. Reimbursement for Moses Lake

Sec. 314. Funding of Cooperative Agreements

Sec. 2917. [Now Sec 2822]--Restrictive Easements

Sec. 3111. Plan for transformation of National Nuclear

Security Administration nuclear weapons complex

Sec. 3112. Extension of Facilities and Infrastructure

Recapitalization Program

Sec. 3115. Two-year extension of authority for appointment

of certain scientific, engineering, and technical personnel

Sec. 3117. Consolidation of counterintelligence programs of

Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security

Administration

Recognizing your interest in bringing this legislation

before the House expeditiously, the Committee on Energy and

Commerce agrees not to seek a sequential referral of the

bill. By the being not to seek a sequential referral, the

Committee on Energy and Commerce does not waive its

jurisdiction over these provisions or any other provisions of

the bill that may fall within its jurisdiction. In addition,

the Committee on Energy and Commerce reserves its right to

seek conferees on any provisions within its jurisdiction

which are considered in the House-Senate conference, and asks

for your support in being accorded such conferees.

I request that you include this letter and your response as

part of the report on H.R. 5122 and as part of the

Congressional Record during consideration of this bill by the

House.

Sincerely,

Joe Barton,

Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition.

I yield to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Pickering).

I thank the gentlemen from Mississippi. I am going to miss Sonny Montgomery, with that great smile that illuminated this House and all of our lives.

Ladies and gentlemen, this defense bill passed the committee by a vote of 60-1. It did that because we listened. My great partner on the committee, Ike Skelton, and I and all of our subcommittee chairmen and ranking members listened to all of the members, worked all of the issues that connect your constituents with you, with all of our troops around the world.

This is our connection, this defense bill, that provides for the policies that run their lives while they are in the military, that provide for the quality of life for their families back home, that provides for the tools that they need to undertake this dangerous mission in this war against terror.

This is your connection. And let me tell you, the theme of the bill this year was troop protection. And to those ends, we moved over $100 million into new jammer capability for IEDs, lots of money, lots of additional money for armored platforms, lots of new technology for body armor for our soldiers, our sailors, our airmen, our Marines. At the same time, for our National Guardsmen, we completed this transition, even when they are not mobilized, for TRICARE, for our health care program. We did great things.

And for those people who have fallen, I want to remind you that last year we moved up that benefit, and it should have been done a long time ago, to half a million dollars in cash for the families of our fallen heroes so that they could carry on their lives.

This bill is your connection to the troops. We did a good job. And I would ask you to trust us, to trust the members of this committee. And with all due respect to the gentlemen who just offered this amendment, you will notice there was no motion to recommit offered by a member of the committee, and that is because this is a good bill. It does a good job. It gives the tools to the troops in this war against terrorism that they need.

Vote against this motion to recommit. Vote for the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that in the engrossment of the bill, H.R. 5122, the Clerk be authorized to correct section numbers, punctuation, cross-references, and the table of contents, and to make such other technical and conforming changes as may be necessary to reflect the actions of the House in amending the bill, and that the Clerk be authorized to make the additional technical corrections which are at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and pay tribute to Colonel Richard Simcock, the United States Marine Corps Liaison Officer to the U.S. House of Representatives. Colonel Simcock has faithfully served in

this capacity since May 2004 and he will soon be accepting command of the 6th Marine Regiment at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

Through his assignment as the Marine Corps Liaison Officer to the House, Colonel Simcock has been an invaluable link between Members of Congress and the Marine Corps. He has coordinated and accompanied congressional delegations to places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, organized and contributed to meetings between Members of Congress and key leaders of the Marine Corps, and worked to ensure that Members are kept fully informed of the programs vital to the Corps' operability.

As Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, I have worked directly with Colonel Simcock on many Committee-related issues. We have come to rely on his candid illustrations and knowledge of the Marine Corps and, over the last two years, Colonel Simcock has been an important part of our efforts to identify the priorities and address the challenges facing the Corps.

Mr. Speaker, the men and women of the Marine Corps have been called to action and tasked with confronting unconventional adversaries in the operational theaters of the global war on terrorism. In Iraq, they are fighting courageously and continue to provide developing security forces with quality instruction and training. However, as the Marines have adjusted and developed new tactics to successfully combat the Iraqi insurgency, Congress has responded by ensuring these brave men and women have the operating and protective equipment necessary to accomplish their mission. In doing so, we have utilized the insight of Colonel Simcock and his ability to open effective communication channels between Congress and the Marine Corps.

Colonel Simcock is greatly respected as an officer and leader who possesses a deep and abiding passion for what it means to be a Marine: unquestionable devotion to duty; impeccable integrity; and sound character. His efforts will have a long lasting impression on the Marine Corps and I know he will serve the 6th Marine Regiment with the same level of dedication and selflessness he demonstrated while serving this House.

Mr. Speaker, it is with the greatest sense of appreciation that I salute Colonel Simcock for his tireless work and outstanding leadership on such important issues and I wish both him and his wife, Mary, continued success in their future endeavors.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about this great bill, because it is an important bill for America.

Let me just lead by following my good colleague from California, Mrs. Capps, with the statement about Santa Rosa Island, which is a very small part of this bill. It is important that the gentlewoman knows that there was virtually one sentence in our Defense bill with respect to Santa Rosa Island. It doesn't prohibit anybody from enjoying the park or the transfer from taking place or the court-ordered operation or transfer from the private entity to the public entity to take place. It only says one thing: Don't exterminate the deer and elk that are on that island.

The court-ordered plan is to exterminate them, and a number of disabled veterans, if you would read the letter from the Paralyzed Veterans of America, would like to keep that population of deer and elk on the island after it comes over to government ownership. I think that is wise also, because the chronic wasting disease and brain disease in deer and elk is sweeping the western United States right now, and that herd that we have offshore on Santa Rosa Island could be a vital restocking resource if, in fact, we have chronic wasting disease rise to a pandemic proportion in the West.

It is a little, protected group of animals there. This is not any big deal in terms of stopping anybody from using that huge island. It just says, don't exterminate all the deer and elk, and the court order says to shoot the last of them from helicopters. We agreed with the Paralyzed Veterans of America that it would be nice to have a small herd there where veterans, disabled, paralyzed and others, could enjoy that resource.

Let me talk about this bill a little bit, because this is a tremendous bill and it has been put together on a bipartisan basis. I want to thank Mr. Skelton for all the great work he did. I want to thank the Rules Committee.

This bill provides for the protection of our soldiers in theater, in the shooting wars we are engaged in right now in Afghanistan and Iraq and the global war against terror, and it also looks over the horizon and provides for new equipment, new trucks, tanks, ships, planes and new technology to protect our country.

On the force protection side especially, we put in over $100 million in additional money for jamming devices to handle roadside bombs. We put in new and improved armor. Our laboratories and the private sector are developing new technology all the time. We have new and improved armor, both in platforms and in body armor, that we are bringing to the field to try to give our troops more and more ballistic protection and protection from fragments. So we truly have a troop protection package in this bill that is going to be very important for everyone who cares about folks in uniform.

We also have some long-range proposals in this bill. For example, we think it is important to keep some of the stealth aircraft around for a while longer than the administration thought. Those great stealth aircraft, like the F-117s that did only a couple of percent of the missions in the first gulf operation, yet knocked out over 20 percent of the targets, that combination of stealth and precision munitions is a very, very important capability for the United States and we don't want to retire those birds too early.

We also feel that in this bill retiring our B-52 force to the degree that is recommended by the Air Force is not providing as much insurance as we need for deep strike capability, the capability to deliver precision munitions at great distances. So we have moved to protect more of those bombers from being retired. We think that is important, to keep them in place until we bring on the new bomber program.

We have a great package in here for people. I just thank my colleagues, Mr. Cole and Mr. Gingrey, who did such great work on this bill, and the Rules Committee and Mr. Hastings and all the others who really care about national security.

Thank you, gentleman, for the great work that you did, because we have in this bill expansion of medical benefits for our National Guard personnel and for their families.

We have lots of resources in this bill for quality of life, for housing. We have a 2.7 percent pay raise, which now means that we are a little bit under, and I heard this from Mr. Gingrey the other day and Mrs. Miller, we have provided now in the last 5 years now right at a 30 percent increase in pay for the 2.5 million people that wear the uniform of the United States.

Almost 30 percent. So we have been caring about the troops at the same time we are looking at the warfighting missions that we know are going to come to this country in the future.

So I want to thank all of the members of the Rules Committee for their hard work on this very important bill, and we hope to be able to get it up and down in the next 2 days and truly serve the people who serve America.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 5122.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that during consideration of H.R. 5122, pursuant to House Resolution 806, general debate shall not exceed 2 hours equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Armed Services.

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

Last week the Committee on Armed Services reported out a bill that very clearly reflects our steadfast support for our service members and their families, our deep appreciation for their many sacrifices, and the strong bipartisan spirit that characterizes this committee.

Passing with a committee vote of 60-1, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 provides for both near and long- term military personnel and force structure requirements, and highlights the need for improvements in acquisition processes and cooperation among key Federal agencies.

Mr. Chairman, the legislation provides $512.9 billion for the Department of Defense and the security programs of the Department of Energy. We include a recommendation of active duty growth of 30,000 for the Army and 5,000 for the Marine Corps above the President's budget request.

We also include a supplemental bridge fund of some $50 billion to support our troops operating in Afghanistan, Iraq and other places in the global war on terrorism, and this, Mr. Chairman, is to provide for a seamless continuity in the waning calendar months of this year so that our troops continue to be well supplied before any supplementals in the following year.

Mr. Chairman, we appreciate the National Guard and Reserve, and we have provided for additional end strength up to 350,000, and we also have right now a series of other enhancements that are being looked at by the special commission chartered by this body and the other body and the President to address National Guard issues. We are going to be doing that. We are going to be getting their recommendations shortly, and those recommendations may be manifested in a bill to follow this one.

But this year, taking care of our troops and protecting our troops has been a real priority, and we have included additional money, in excess of $100 million, for jamming devices to handle roadside bombs. We have included additional money for greater armor in our platforms, better armor with our new technology in the body armor units that are issued so our Army and Marine Corps personnel, in fact all personnel who are stationed in this theater, and we are spending a lot of resources protecting our forces, protecting the troops.

Additionally, Mr. Chairman, we look over the horizon and we look at potential trouble spots around the world, security challenges over the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years, and we do a few other things, and our very able chairmen of the subcommittees are going to describe a lot of the things that we do with respect to equipment and personnel in detail. But we keep a little more insurance, perhaps, than the administration has in a couple of areas.

One is stealth attack aircraft. We used just a few percentage of these great F-117 stealth aircraft in the first gulf war, and yet they knocked out over 20 percent of the targets. This combination of stealth and precision munitions has been a very critical and important factor in the American security apparatus. We don't allow the Air Force to move so quickly to retire those stealth aircraft until we get others online.

We also retain a greater part of our bomber force. That has been the backbone of our deep strike for many, many years. We don't have a new bomber program right now and we don't want to let quite as many of those birds go before we are well embarked on this new bomber program.

As you move across the modernization spectrum, Mr. Chairman, our members have done an extraordinary job in putting together packages for our special operators, for our line troops, for our Guard and Reserve. We have also done some great things for people, for families.

We have extended TRICARE. We have completed this movement of coverage of TRICARE to our National Guard personnel. We have made prescription drugs more affordable. We have put an emphasis and an incentive on getting your medicine through the mail, because that is a much lower burden for the taxpayers of the United States and very convenient now for those recipients.

Mr. Chairman, we have great subcommittee chairmen and great ranking members. We are going to be recognizing them to tell us about this bill. I want to give my thanks to them and my special partner and friend, Ike Skelton, who has put in countless hours leading on issues and developing issues and working to ensure that the people that wear the uniform of the United States have the very finest conditions and the very finest treatment for themselves and their family, and that America's defense remains the envy of the world.

I reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman, with many thanks to all the committee, and all the staff, who helped to put this bill together.

Mr. Chairman, we are at a crossroads on a lot of our defense weapons systems. There is no one more capable or better trained to lead in these very important decisions than the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), who is the chairman of the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) 6 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado, Joel Hefley, who has done remarkable work in this Readiness Subcommittee, which controls such a big portion of the defense bill. The gentleman is a great friend to everyone who wears a uniform and is probably the best rodeo cowboy who has ever served in this House.

Mr. Chairman, the heart of this bill is the 2.5 million Americans that wear the uniform of the United States, and the subcommittee that oversees personnel issues and sets the pay raises and does personnel policy is headed by the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh). This is an enormous job, and he has done a great job. I yield the gentleman 6 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, the Strategic Forces Subcommittee is extremely important to our country, and the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Everett) does a wonderful job of overseeing this very important dimension of national security.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Everett).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Bartlett), who heads the Projection Forces Subcommittee, which oversees the construction of the platforms and our ships and our bomber forces and our airlift that projects American power around the world.

(Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, from the mountains of Afghanistan to the desert country of Iraq to the jungles of many hemispheres, Special Operations and Special Forces personnel in the U.S. military are cognizant of an individual in this House who works for them night and day, and that is Jim Saxton, who is the chairman of the Terrorism and Special Operations Subcommittee, and I want to recognize the gentleman for 4 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I might add the gentleman who just spoke, the gentleman from Texas, has been to the warfighting theaters more than any other Member of either body in this Congress and we appreciate his great efforts.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson), who took the place of the great Floyd Spence, former chairman of this committee, and nobody has devoted more in terms of their personal effort toward national security or, in Mr. Wilson's case, more of their family members. The Wilson family wears the uniform of the United States.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Davis), who brought his experience as an officer of the 82nd Airborne to the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman who just spoke. I share his focus on IEDs, and we will work together.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes), who represents so many great people in uniform in North Carolina and has spent so much time working for their quality of life and for their effectiveness on the battlefield, and also for all of the people who work in the defense industry so we can make sure when the American taxpayer pays for defense items, since we defend the free world, that those items are made by Americans and represent American jobs.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), a former member of the Armed Services Committee, who is

still very devoted to national security and exercises that role as a member of the Rules Committee.

I would say to my good colleague, I have just one additional thing that I would like to mention about a provision in the bill. But outside of that, we are ready to wrap up the general debate. So I have got just maybe a minute or two.

Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to say to my colleagues that this, the story of this global war against terror with the special focus in Iraq and Afghanistan, is a story of families. It is a story of enormous sacrifice, not just by the people that wear the uniform in the theater, but by their families back home, their moms, their dads, their wives, their husbands, their children.

And there is a particular family, the Holley family from San Diego, California, that brought an issue to the attention of the Armed Services Committee here over this last year when their great 101st Airborne Trooper, Matthew Holley, was killed in the Iraq theater. And they pointed out that in the present chain of transportation of our fallen heroes home, where they come through Dover, Delaware, and ultimately go to their final resting place at their particular hometown or community in America, that part of that chain of transportation has been carried out by commercial airlines. And despite the best wishes and the best efforts on the part of those people who operate the commercial airlines, the proper amount of respect, the extreme respect that should be afforded those fallen heroes is in some cases, has in some cases been lacking.

And that came to the attention of the Holley family. And they talked to me and to other members of the committee, and we looked at the issue and as a result of that, we have, in the law, in this bill or in the proposed law, some very clear and strong directives to the administration to utilize military aircraft in taking our fallen heroes from Dover, Delaware, from where they land on American shores, to the military base that is closest to their hometown, unless otherwise directed by the family, and to use those military aircraft and to accompany those fallen heroes with American military personnel, and to greet that military aircraft when it arrives at that military base closest to their hometown with an honor guard.

And so we have laid out very directive language, very clear language for the administration. And I want to thank John and Stacy, who really brought this to our attention in honor of their son, Matthew Holley. And I think that we have talked to the other body and I think that this will have clear support all the way through.

But this is an important part of this bill because part of this bill is about respect. And this particular provision is about respect for those people who have given that last full measure of devotion to our country.

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

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this is a manager's amendment that has been worked out with both sides. And briefly, Mr. Chairman, this adds a section to add $4 million for the call of the fire trainer/joint fires and effects trainer with an offset of $4 million from the Joint Tactical Radio System.

It adds a section to add $6 million to the Air Force Science Engineering Lab Data Integration with an offset of $6 million from IT,

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

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I want to reinforce and echo the very eloquent words of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel).

I listened to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks) when he brought in Operation Smile, and I saw the pictures and I listened to his description of how important this is. This is part of the American ripple. It is part of the effect that those 138,000 ambassadors in desert camouflage uniforms have in that theater on a human basis, on a personal basis.

If the gentleman would just tell us, because I thought this was the neatest part of your presentation when you brought Operation Smile in, the effects of this operation, because you had these kids with cleft palates. I saw the pictures of their fathers and mothers with their children after the operation. If the gentleman could describe that, I think we would all appreciate it.

I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize California native and U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Mulvihill. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to honor Colonel Mulvihill, who will soon be retiring from the Army after 25 years of distinguished service to our nation.

Colonel Mulvihill began his career with the Army in 1981 upon receiving an ROTC commission from the University of California, Davis. Since that time, he has been assigned to commands from California to Europe, serving as a Battalion S2, Assistant Brigade S2, Tactical Signals Intelligence Company Commander, Observer-Controller for the National Training Center, Instructor at Fort Huachuca, Assistant G2 in Europe, SFOR Intelligence Task Force Commander in Bosnia and the 66th MI Group S3.

In 2001, Colonel Mulvihill assumed command at the Joint Intelligence Training Activity Pacific, his current and final duty assignment. Colonel Mulvihill is known by those who have served beside him, as well as those he has commanded, as an Intelligence expert and a leader who has always put the welfare of our nation's soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors before his own.

President Ronald Reagan once said, ``I always believed in the importance of peace through strength. And the military is the provider of that strength. So we must equip them, train them and support them. But over the years, America's military leadership has brought us to even greater heights than we ever could imagine.'' Mr. Speaker, President Reagan was referring to leaders like Colonel Mulvihill, who embody the strength of our nation and remain our military's greatest asset.

As Chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services, I extend my deepest appreciation and gratitude to Colonel Mulvihill for his 25 years of dedicated military service. Mr. Speaker, I ask that my colleagues join me in saluting this American hero and wishing him and his family continued success in their future endeavors.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the life and community service of Mr. Harold Soens, who recently passed away at the age of 66 at his home in Santee, California. As President of the San Diego Off-Road Coalition and the California League of Off-Road Voters, Mr. Soens was passionate about off-road recreation, devoting his life toward working with the community; especially children. He educated others about the sport, teaching the value of off-road safety and etiquette and working to protect the rights of all off-road enthusiasts while, at the same time, appreciating the environment with which we have been blessed.

Mr. Soens learned the value of service at a very young age, losing his father aboard the USS Arizona during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. It was this example that Mr. Soens would follow throughout his life as he devoted his time toward the goal of creating a positive environment and future for outdoor recreation in California.

An off-road enthusiast since 1958, Mr. Soens rode everything from midgets to sprint cars and spent some time racing as a competitive motorcycle rider. Known for his sense of humor, friendliness, frankness and energy, Mr. Soens served in several capacities with the California Off-Road Vehicle Association, the American Motorcyclist Association, the National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council, the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreational Area Technical Review Team and the Stakeholders Roundtable for OHV Recreation in California. Even with these responsibilities, Mr. Soens found the time to volunteer hundreds of hours at the Ocotillo Wells State Vehicular Recreational Area and as an ATV Safety Instructor for the State of California

Mr. Soens was also heavily involved with the Survivors of Pearl Harbor and the California Police Activities League (CalPal) program where he served as a mentor to inner-city and under-privileged children by providing the opportunity for them to appreciate the beauty of our desert and the enjoyment of off-road activities. At all times, with all students, Mr. Soens stressed the responsibility of being safe and treating the land in which they lived and played with respect.

I wish to express to his wife, Jean, his four children, eight grandchildren and one great grandchild, my sincerest condolences for their loss. In a time where the idea of volunteerism is often seen as a burden, Mr. Soens' dedication and service is a reminder to us all that effort rendered toward the benefit of our community is the greatest use of our time.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

I thank my friend for yielding, Mr. Speaker, and I would just take a minute. I have been watching my friend and the gentlewoman from Virginia (Mrs. Drake), and I just wanted to tell you how proud I am of the job that you do representing your districts and representing those great contingencies of American veterans and active duty service people in your district.

I wanted to say, and I know you have been talking about health care, but I wanted to talk about another type of security just for one second, and that is national security. And I know my friend has been to Iraq, and I think he is going again soon, and many other Members of this body, Democrat and Republican, are going. Now is the time when America should take heart.

I have watched the newspapers and the mood of this House as of late, and I feel, especially coming from the Democrat side, the message is one that I have seen before. It is a message that we saw in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan faced down the Soviet Union, and you had calls from the far left to the effect that President Reagan was going to have a war with the Soviets, that he needed to acquiesce, he needed to engage, even as they ringed our allies in Europe with SS-20 missiles. And yet Ronald Reagan stood tough. He stood for a policy of peace through strength. And at one point the Soviets picked up the phone and said, can we talk? And when we talked, we talked about the disassembly of the Soviet empire.

Similarly he stood tough in Central America, and today those two nations in question, El Salvador and Nicaragua, have fragile democracies because of America. Today, we are providing that military shield in Iraq while we put this fragile government together, a government based on something new in that part of the world: Freedom and representative government.

You know, this has been done on the shoulders of the great American servicemen and women who serve us in that very troubled and difficult part of the world. And their job is dusty and dirty and sometimes bloody, but it is worthwhile. And what they are giving to us, if we can stabilize that country and that neighborhood and have a country that has a benign relationship towards the United States, will accrue to the benefit of generations of Americans.

So now is the time to take heart. Now is the time to not fail. Now is the time to stand firm, and I want to thank the gentlemen for his work on Armed Services and the Rules Committee, for the great work he does in that regard.