Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of going to the 50th anniversary commemoration of the Vietnam war in Little Rock and to see all the hugs and emotion at that event. Truly, it was a tumultuous time in our world. It was so good to see the healing that those men and women experienced at that 50th anniversary. I looked at that table set for the POW/MIA ceremony, and, of course, I was thinking about Sergeant Harold George Bennett from Perryville, Arkansas. Sergeant Bennett was born on October 16, 1940, in Thornburg, Arkansas, a very small town outside the beautiful Ouachita National Forest. A graduate of Perryville High School, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1957. He served as an airborne infantryman with the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions--no finer units. He completed Special Forces training in 1963. From there, Sergeant Bennett volunteered to go to South Vietnam as a Special Forces adviser with the Military Assistance Command. On December 29, 1964, his unit was airlifted to a small village after it had been overrun by the Viet Cong. Upon landing, Sergeant Bennett's unit was confronted by enemy forces. Twice, he refused extraction by military helicopters, as he was concerned for the pilots' safety and wanted to continue the fight against the enemy. After a furious and courageous battle, Sergeant Bennett was taken prisoner by the Viet Cong. Like so many of his colleagues, he spent 179 days as a POW and attempted to escape three times at great risk.…”