Political Quotes

“I rise today to join wholeheartedly my National Guard Caucus cochairman, the distinguished Senator from Vermont, in urging the Senate to adopt these emergency appropriations for our National Guard. We have had a lot of talk about emergency responders and people wondered, Did this group do their job? Did that group do their job? As Governor of Missouri for 8 years, I saw the National Guard respond, and respond fully, to every natural disaster we had. We had floods, we had tornadoes, we had some other civil disorders, and the Guard responded. They responded with the equipment they needed. Since that time, I have served in the Senate as cochairman of the National Guard. I have seen the Guard continue to respond to State emergencies time after time after time. When they have been called upon to go abroad as part of the national defense mission, they have done so extremely well. Unfortunately, the men and women of the National Guard, those vital citizen soldiers who volunteer to serve their country, have not been well resourced. It appears when equipment is available the Pentagon obviously takes care, first, of the active. In this situation, we have seen a tremendous drain on equipment--not just from emergencies around the country but from the National Guard's participation and contribution of equipment to our overseas mission. As a result, the equipment readiness in critical areas of the National Guard has fallen to about 34 percent.…”