Doug Bereuter: “Floyd Spence was a good, a valued, and valuable Member of this House. He will be missed greatly. I want his family to…”

“Floyd Spence was a good, a valued, and valuable Member of this House. He will be missed greatly. I want his family to know and all of his friends and constituents what a tremendous contribution he has made to the country. The gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) just outlined in brief form the contributions he made to our armed services. Floyd Spence was a living, breathing, walking miracle and he knew it. It affected his life, and it affected all of us who knew Floyd. I had a friendship with him my entire 23 years here. He began service earlier than that. We shared a passion for planting trees on our respective acreage in South Carolina and Nebraska. We are members of the same religious denomination. We talked about religion and its importance to us many times. Mostly, I knew Floyd Spence because of his involvement with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, formerly known as the North Atlantic Assembly. I chair that delegation and have since 1995. Floyd, much senior to me, was a very valuable member of that delegation. All of us on that delegation, Republicans, Democrats and our spouses and staff, miss the tremendous contributions that he has made. We miss them already. He was a member of the Defense and Security Committee of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and, of course, as a chairman and then former chairman of our House Committee on Armed Services, his word was greatly respected and sought after in that assembly.”