Phil Gingrey: “Mr. Speaker, what the chairman was just saying is just so true. It came home to me in a big and tragic way in this past…”

“Mr. Speaker, what the chairman was just saying is just so true. It came home to me in a big and tragic way in this past week. I am a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. The president of the student body just a couple of years ago at Georgia Tech, my alma mater, a young first lieutenant, Tyler Brown, was killed leading his troops in a firefight in Iraq. He was an outstanding young man. Everybody said that one day Tyler would surely become President. I do not know about that, but I know that his mom and dad and his older brother Brent are suffering deeply now, as much as a person could possibly suffer, over the tragic loss of their son and brother. As the chairman says, Mr. Speaker, you cannot support the troops out of one side of your mouth and criticize them out of the other. This is the one thing that this family, this Brown family, has to hold on to for the rest of their lives, to know that Tyler, their son, who had such great potential, who gave his life for this country, killed in action, was not killed in vain. I really appreciate the chairman, Mr. Speaker, bringing that out tonight, because you cannot be for the troops and against them. You cannot have it both ways. I just felt like I needed to make that statement.”