Brian Jones: “Like most of my colleagues, I had the opportunity to speak to a number of veteran groups on Memorial Day in my district.…”

“Like most of my colleagues, I had the opportunity to speak to a number of veteran groups on Memorial Day in my district. As always, I was very humbled when I stand before those who have fought for this Nation and the families whose loved ones did not come back from wars. I would like the House to know that when I talked about the McGovern- Jones amendment to get our troops out of Afghanistan, the statement received very strong applause, showing the very strong support of the veterans of the Third District for getting our troops home from Afghanistan. After my comments, I had many of these veterans come up individually who wanted to talk to me, expressing their support and telling me that they agree with McGovern and myself. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the 26 Republicans who voted in favor of the McGovern-Jones amendment last week. I believe we came within 11 votes of passage. Mr. McGovern and I will continue to fight until there's a definite plan to bring our troops home before 2015. Bin Laden is gone, and there is zero al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan. We have done our job. In closing, I would like to quote Leslie Gelb from his May 9 article in The Wall Street Journal: ``Afghanistan is no longer a war about vital American security interests.…”