Leonard L. Boswell: “first off, I want to say to Mr. Murtha, I salute you, sir. We both served in Vietnam. I had two tours. I never told you…”

“first off, I want to say to Mr. Murtha, I salute you, sir. We both served in Vietnam. I had two tours. I never told you this. I don't go around talking about it much. You don't either. But Charlie Beckwith, you remember that name, don't you? In the Iron Triangle? Sometimes we had those assaults and sometimes we had to go bring them out. When we had to bring them out, there were lots and lots of casualties. We did not like to do that. So this exercise we went through a few months ago, saying that you wanted to make an immediate withdrawal, that is not what you said. I know that, and we all know it because that would be chaos. It needs a plan. So I come today to share that little bit with you. I finished up my tours in the military as an instructor at the Command Staff College, Department of Tactics. We rewrote 101-5. We might want to talk about that sometime. You might find it interesting. And I would say without reservation, Leonard Boswell, Jack Murtha, and probably everybody in this Chamber support our troops, absolutely, 100 percent. That is not on the table, as far as I am concerned. They are in a difficult mission. They are performing superbly. And we are very, very proud of them. That is not the question. Last December Ike Skelton and, I do not know, 12 or 15 of us, and I do not know how I got invited, but we got invited to the White House to meet with the President, the Vice President, Mr. Rumsfeld, Ms. Rice, General Pace.…”