Political Quotes

“Mr. President, our Presiding Officer, if I am not mistaken, is a veteran himself--I want to say Army. Navy salutes Army. Different uniform, same team. I want to express my thanks to Senator Whitehouse for his comments relating to the Vietnam war. I stand before you as the last Vietnam veteran serving in the U.S. Senate, with the death of John McCain. I had the privilege of leading a bipartisan congressional delegation--three Democrats, three Republicans--back to Southeast Asia to try to find out what happened to our MIAs in 1991--Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos. One of the people with me in that delegation--amazing meetings we had with the brandnew leader of Vietnam, a Gorbachev-like character with whom we met during that visit. We carried with us to Southeast Asia on that trip a roadmap to normalize relations between the United States and Vietnam. Vietnam by that time was not North Vietnam, South Vietnam. Out of our meetings, we started something that went really well and led to normalizing relations. John McCain worked it here and John Kerry worked it here in the Senate. A bipartisan codel worked it in the House. One of the members in the codel was a former POW--was Air Force, shot down over Vietnam, POW for 5 or 6 years--named Pete Peterson. He was a longtime friend and still is my friend. He became the first U.S. Ambassador to a united Vietnam all those years ago.…”