E. Scott Rigell

Mr. Speaker, this Congress must address the defense sequester with the urgency that is warranted. Our men and women in uniform are fighting bravely around the world, and they depend on the certainty of knowing that they have got everything they need to accomplish their mission.

The way to achieve that certainty is made increasingly difficult because of sequestration and the indiscriminate cuts that are affecting our men and women in uniform. I respectfully remind my colleagues today that as we start this budget and appropriations process, that we have the opportunity to replace sequestration in the months ahead.

Last year, House Republicans passed not only a budget in a timely manner, but we incorporated increased defense spending to ease the burden of sequestration.

Regardless of which side of the aisle we are on today, we all have a deep obligation to pass on the blessings of liberty and freedom to future generations. In order to accomplish that, we can no longer allow Federal budget policy to be dictated by a process that neither side intended to go into effect.

I encourage my colleagues to make ending sequestration the top priority in the 114th Congress.

Mr. Speaker, it is a special and high honor to be in this Chamber of the people's House to honor, to remember, and to pay respectful tribute to a most remarkable American, a true patriot, and one of the finest marines I have ever known, Master Gunnery Sergeant Jimmy Hargrove. He was a dear friend of mine and my family.

Jimmy was enlisted. He was an enlisted marine. This is my father, Ike; he is also an enlisted marine. He is doing great at the age of 91. He is an Iwo Jima veteran. There is something about enlisted marines, when we meet each other, we often ask, ``Are you a Parris Island marine?'' I was.

If you are a Parris Island marine, you usually give the other alternative, which is this. You say, ``Or are you a Hollywood marine?'' That is, did you go through boot camp in San Diego?

Well, that question applies to virtually all enlisted marines, but there are some whom that question really doesn't apply to because the answer is neither Parris Island nor San Diego, but it is a different place they went to boot camp, Montford Point, North Carolina.

From 1942 to 1949, 20,000 young African American men, young Black men from across our country like Jimmy, didn't go to Parris Island or San Diego. He went to Montford Point, and that is where he endured the training that defines, shapes, and molds young men and women now into marines--fully segregated units.

These marines have gone on to fight in our Nation's battles. Jimmy, for example, fought in Korea and then Vietnam. Some have been grievously wounded. Many gave the ultimate sacrifice for our Nation.

It was fitting and proper, Mr. Speaker, when in 2012 this body and the Senate unanimously passed legislation which President Obama then signed into law which gave to all Montford Point marines, all surviving Montford Point marines, the Congressional Gold Medal. It was a privilege to be at that ceremony. Jimmy took great pride in this, and he was there as well with his family and his wife, Cheryl.

There is no question, Mr. Speaker, that we are a better, stronger, and safer America because of our Montford Point marines, and we are a better, safer, and stronger America because of the life of Jimmy Hargrove.

This picture from 2013 at the Marine Corps ball is one of my favorite pictures. It shows the bond between two marines, really one generation to the next. I consider it an honor to pay tribute to him today.

Yesterday, Jimmy was laid to rest in Arlington. It is fitting that he is there in Arlington in eternal rest. What I really remember about Jimmy and think about is--it is not pictured in this picture, but his smile, Jimmy's smile. He was always so optimistic, and though he knew the bitter fruit of segregation, he, himself, was not bitter.

He was fully optimistic about our Nation, and he fought for our Nation even after his retirement. He engaged in shaping public policy and shaping the way our country is headed. I deeply respect him for this. He did not yield to apathy's seductive call, but he chose to continue to fight for his country.

We marines are a proud lot. It is even embedded in our Marines' Hymn. The last verse is:

If the Army and the Navy

Ever look on Heaven's scenes;

They will find the streets are guarded

By United States Marines.

I think of Jimmy as still being on duty and in Heaven as well. He was a man of deep faith, and so I would say to my friend, in respect for his life and his service to our country, ``Master Gunnery Hargrove, mission accomplished. Job well done, marine. Semper Fidelis. Semper Fi.''

May God grant eternal rest to this fine American, and may God also provide a special measure of comfort and grace to his wife, Cheryl, and their entire family.

Mr. Speaker, I have just returned from an extraordinary experience in July, 2014 in Israel, the land I first came to in 1949 at the tender age of three and a half, already a refugee, from post-World War II Europe. Yet nothing could have prepared me for the surrealistic reality of approaching rockets and wailing sirens, a frightful scenario that Israeli citizens of all ages in its south have had to contend with for fourteen long years, with only fifteen seconds to find protective shelter. I will long remember being awakened

by the sirens' piercing sounds of war alert at 3:15 a.m. in Haifa, Israel's northern city, far away from Gaza or as proven rather close, and moving quickly with my mom, a ninety-two year old remarkably resilient Polish Holocaust survivor, to the best possible room in her apartment to await whatever might happen with our hearts pounding. Luckily the rocket was intercepted by an Iron Dome installation that the United States has gratefully financed.

No nation would have done less than Israel to fulfill a basic mandate of protecting one's population and all nations would have done more early on. Restrained by its legacy of Jewish and humanitarian values, ever conscious of the double standard applied to its conduct, Israel has exercised an admirable measure of caution to save lives even from the midst of a firing hostile territory controlled by Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization whose covenant unabashedly calls for Israel's destruction and criminally has used children, women and men as human shields; it shot 3500 rockets and also mortars from schools, hospitals, mosques, homes and U.N. facilities with the clear goal of indiscriminately killing and maiming Israelis.

When Hamas and the host of other Arab terrorist organizations will care more for their children than the death of its ``enemy's'' children, will there emerge new hope for the long-awaiting to be transformed Middle East. When Israel's insistence on the sacredness of human life--all human life--will become the inheritance of the entire troubled region, replacing pagan human sacrifice, will the yearning of modern Israel and its biblical prophets for that essential though elusive Shalom, Salaam, Peace, reemerge as a potent force for the sake of all. How could Hamas, tragically and ironically elected into power by Gaza's misguided and long-suffering people, following Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza at an enormous cost, squander its donated material resources away from the declared purpose of creating a supportive and necessary infrastructure toward establishing a terrorizing war machine with attack tunnels reaching into Israel with a goal of surprising Israel someday with mortal death blows? We are duty-bound to remember that Iran supplied Hamas with the smuggled weaponry and that Hamas is but Iran's proxy, alerted by Iran's stubborn search for a nuclear capability that will make all the difference. Sadly Qatar is not an innocent by-stander, offering Hamas vast financial support.

I was deeply touched by Israel's courageous people coming together in a heart-warming display of national unity in the face of a mighty and unique challenge, while maintaining its enviable democratic impulse of cherished freedom to express a variety of views that could not take place in Gaza. Israel is weeping for its heroic defenders as well as the innocent victims on the other side held hostage by an ideology alien to what we in the West will never willingly give up.

Make no mistake. Israel represents the American democratic heritage with common purpose and interest, in a part of the world disdaining it and in which Radical Islam increasingly makes disastrous inroads as the shameful slaughter in Syria and Iraq continues while self-righteous and callous Europe with its growing anti-Semitism fueled by Islamist forces looks aside, expecting the Israelis to be like past Jews who could not defend themselves and paid such a high price for it. Let all Americans say with one voice for the sake of all that is sacred and sane in a triumphant message that dare not be misunderstood, ``Never Again!''

Rabbi Israel Zoberman is the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Chaverim in Virginia Beach.