Brian Jones: “I wanted to come to the floor and say that I was very disappointed during the debate on the NDAA bill, the National…”

“I wanted to come to the floor and say that I was very disappointed during the debate on the NDAA bill, the National Defense Authorization Act. We spent hours debating, and we only had 20 minutes to debate Afghanistan, with 10 minutes allotted to each side. Congresswoman Lee had her amendment, which I supported on the floor, but the amendment that Mr. McGovern and I had worked together for weeks crafting, the McGovern-Jones amendment, basically said accountability on 2014, bringing our troops out. We need to have these guidelines, and I was very disappointed that our leadership would not bring our amendment to the floor. I think it's tragic that our young men and women are dying in Afghanistan and Iraq and we're not meeting our constitutional responsibility when it comes to debating war. Last Saturday, like many of my colleagues, I was invited to speak at a Memorial event down in Beaufort, North Carolina. Primarily those in attendance were our veterans of yesterday and some of our Active Duty marines of today. It was amazing. I'm not a great speaker, but when I talked about bringing our troops out of Afghanistan before 2014, I got a strong applause in agreement. We have a tremendous responsibility to take care of our wounded from Afghanistan and Iraq. In this financial crisis, I truthfully don't know how we're going to take care of them, to be honest about it. What I do know is that we will deal with it.…”