Political Quotes

“I thank my colleague. Yes, of course, they pay attention. They see what is going on in the Senate. We track this. I tracked this when I was a young captain serving in Kuwait and Iraq. We track this because it is so important that we have the funding necessary for our personnel--just basic funding of our human resources obligations to the U.S. Armed Forces. As to our personnel, we have to have funding to update our equipment, and we have to have the funding for the training necessary so that our men and women are ready and able to forward deploy. Even when they are forward deployed--in Iraq, Afghanistan, or you name it--they pay attention. It is vitally important that what we do here today is to vote on the DOD appropriations bill. We have to stop this filibuster. Our troops are paying attention. Their families are paying attention. Their families here in the United States want to know the Senate is doing the right thing by protecting our military, making sure we have the troops necessary, the equipment necessary, the training necessary to make sure that when they forward deploy, they come home safe again. That is No. 1--making sure they are properly trained, equipped, and manned so they come home safe. So yes, Senator Sullivan, they do pay attention. As we are standing here debating the importance of this appropriations bill, we have almost 10,000 troops serving today--right now--in Afghanistan. We have almost 5,000 troops in Iraq.…”