On the recordMarch 23, 2015
as we begin this week with the serious and necessary discussions about the budget, I rise today to talk about something that is very personal to me, something that is incredibly close to my heart--the service and sacrifice of our Nation's finest men and women, those who serve in our Armed Forces. As the budget process moves forward, we must ensure that our national security needs are met and that our veterans can receive the much- needed care and assistance they deserve. Growing up on a farm in rural southwest Iowa, my parents instilled in my sister, my brother, and me the importance of hard work, service, and sacrifice. In the summer between my freshman and sophomore years at Iowa State University, I was very fortunate to attend an agricultural exchange in Ukraine, when it was still part of the former Soviet Union. The Iowa students and I lived on a collective farm for a number of weeks. In the evening, when the community members came together, we did not talk about agricultural practices, like I anticipated. What we talked about was what it was like to be free, what it was like to be an American. Those were the things the Ukrainians wanted to know. They wanted to know about freedom, our Republic, and democracy. Just a few short years later, they became an independent nation. They are a sovereign nation. It was then that I better understood what it meant to have freedom and how much people elsewhere truly desire it.…
