Brian Jones: “Yesterday I had the privilege and the humbling experience of going to Walter Reed at Bethesda. It is a magnificent…”

“Yesterday I had the privilege and the humbling experience of going to Walter Reed at Bethesda. It is a magnificent medical complex, and our young men and women deserve to have that kind of treatment. I was so impressed. In visiting the wounded and thanking them for their service, I encountered a 22-year-old lance corporal who was wounded during his second tour of duty in Afghanistan. Standing there in his room with his mother, he asked me why are we still in Afghanistan. I looked at his mother and I looked in his face and I said, I don't know. I said there are a few of us in the House trying to get our troops back home before the 2014-2015 deadline. Mr. Speaker, I have beside me a photograph of a triple amputee, a soldier, with his wife, who has lost both legs and an arm. Yesterday I noted to the doctor who was escorting me around that I saw more double amputees than ever before. I saw some down in the rehab center, and I saw those in their rooms that have not gotten to that point yet because of their severe wounds. He said, Congressman, the number of double amputees is going up every week, every month, and it will continue to go up. My question to the leadership of the House: Why don't you speak out, both parties, and call on Mr. Obama to bring our troops home before 2015? It's kind of ironic. I represent the Third District of North Carolina and we got hit pretty hard, like most of the States all of the way up to Vermont, by the hurricane.…”