Joel Hefley: “I thank you very much. I thank you, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Skelton and Mr. Ortiz for the very kind words. You kind of went over…”

“I thank you very much. I thank you, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Skelton and Mr. Ortiz for the very kind words. You kind of went over the top when you said I was the best rodeo cowboy. The truth is I was and still am a rodeo cowboy, still enter some charity rodeos, but if there has ever been a rodeo cowboy serving in this body, I would say that he probably is better than I am. But I appreciate the kind words and I appreciate your yielding me time. The gentleman from California, our chairman, and the ranking member as well, there is no one in this body that has more of a heart for the soldiers, for the people who dedicate themselves to defending us, than these two gentlemen do, and I think this is exemplified in the bill that you have before you today. I am very, very proud to endorse and support this bill, because it meets the needs of the men and women in uniform while protecting our national security, and I think we can be very proud of it. I think also Mr. Weldon emphasized one thing that I think is important as an example, Mr. Hunter, to our body here. So much of what we do in this body is for political advantage, one party, the other party, to get political advantage. This bill is truly a bipartisan bill. When you have 61-1, for crying out loud, it means that we sat down and tried to solve the problems that we solved. And we didn't solve them as Democrats or Republicans; we solved them as Members of Congress trying to do the right thing for our troops.…”