Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, earlier this month, I visited the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Memorial on Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. The memorial wall is located across from the EOD school where men and women from every branch are trained in the elite and specialized skills necessary to locate, identify, render safe, recover, evaluate, and dispose of explosives. As former Army EOD, I understand the critical role our EOD forces play as the key enablers in the ongoing war on IEDs both at home and abroad. I also understand the omnipresent danger that our EOD warriors face in the battlefield and on civil support missions here in the United States. The memorial wall contains the names of the brave men and women of the EOD who have given their lives in defense of our freedom. The memorial wall does an excellent job of recognizing the incredible sacrifice that our EOD forces and all of our men and women in uniform make every day on behalf of our freedom. I would like to take a moment to honor the EOD warriors who lost their lives in the line of duty between World War II and Vietnam but are not recognized on the EOD memorial wall. These men and women served valiantly and lost their lives in the line of duty, but are not included on the memorial wall because they were not physically assigned to an EOD unit at the time of their death.…”