Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, not too long ago, I was woken up abruptly one morning by a text message from a friend of mine that I had both served and trained with in the Army. His message was alarming because it came after many months of struggle in his life: nightmares, posttraumatic stress, many late nights staying up self-medicating with alcohol, troubles with his family, and a constant desire coming from him that the only way he knew how to deal with the challenges that he had was to deploy again and again and again. Finally, he was home and he got to a point where he felt comfortable asking for help. He summoned up the courage one day--he was at his civilian job during the day--finally to call his local VA hotline, and he got a voice-mail. This strong, battle-worn, courageous infantryman broke down in tears and ran out of the office building where he worked. His frustration and disappointment and even heartbreak was palpable that, even as he had spent so many years of his life answering the call to duty again and again and again, sacrificing so much, at that one moment that he made that very difficult decision to finally ask for help, no one was there. No one answered the phone. He detailed this in a text message to me. I immediately called him and spent a couple of hours on the phone with him talking things through.…”