Brian Jones: “Like most of my colleagues in the House, on Memorial Day I had the privilege to speak to two different groups down in…”

“Like most of my colleagues in the House, on Memorial Day I had the privilege to speak to two different groups down in the Third District of North Carolina, which I represent. One of the events comes to mind down in Beaufort, North Carolina. There were well over 150 people there--most of them obviously were veterans or family of veterans, and a couple of families whose loved ones didn't come home from previous wars. That brings me to the point that last week Jim McGovern and I offered an amendment to create a formula to bring our troops home from Afghanistan, and I want to thank the 26 Republicans who voted for that amendment. We came within six votes of creating a formula for the President to bring our troops home before 2015. Mr. Speaker, at these two events down in my district, I had veterans line up when I finished to come up to say, ``We agree with you on your position to bring our troops home from Afghanistan.'' And even at one event I got a very strong applause when I mentioned the McGovern-Jones amendment and how close we came to create a formula to bring our troops home. Mr. Speaker, they said to me, well, why did we go into Afghanistan? Bin Laden, he was responsible for 9/11, he's dead now. Al Qaeda, which had a large presence back in 2003, 2004 in Afghanistan, is now diminished. Now these are the veterans talking to me. I'm not a veteran. But my statement was, you're right.…”