Brian Jones: “I thank the gentleman for hosting this tonight for us to talk about the importance of these dogs. They are more than…”

“I thank the gentleman for hosting this tonight for us to talk about the importance of these dogs. They are more than dogs; they are buddies to our men and women in uniform who have been fighting for America. Mr. Speaker, in the year 2000, I had the honor and the pleasure of meeting John Burnam, retired United States Army combat infantryman and dog handler during the Vietnam war. He approached me with the idea of a War Dog Memorial to honor our great K-9 veterans. John shared with me the impact that these animals had on him and his fellow handlers in the sixties. They are forever emotionally grateful for their K-9 buddies. Through this relationship, as we began to work on a War Dog Memorial in 2007, which took several years, a marine named Dustin Lee was killed in the Iraq war. John had written a story. He wanted me to read the story and then speak out and reach out to General Regner, United States Marine Corps, and ask him to please retire this wonderful animal named Lex, a German shepherd, who had also been wounded with his master, and ask General Regner to reach out to the Air Force to retire Lex. I want to read briefly the story that John had written and given to me. I will read five paragraphs from the article, ``My Partner Dustin.'' ``I'm a U.S. Marine and the primary element of a two-member team trained to hunt and locate explosives.…”