Political Quotes

“If you want to be reminded of what an American hero is today, you don't have to search far within the ranks of our military to find one. Today, I'd like to share the story of a couple of such heroes--in fact, a family of them. Army Specialist Ron Gebur was a 23-year-old sniper who was killed by an IED in Iraq 5 years ago. Ron's wife, Bethany, also served as an Army medic. At the time of Ron's death, they had a 9-month-old son, Gage, and Bethany had just received orders to deploy to Iraq herself. Her orders would have required her to leave well before Ron was scheduled to return home from his service in Iraq. Recently, Ron's mother-in-law contacted me. She asked me to stand up for these dual military families to ensure children like Gage don't grow up as orphans or have to go through the experience of seeing both Mom and Dad deployed at the very same time. Today, I am offering an amendment that would give these dual military families with children some flexibility, knowing that they have an option to defer concurrent deployment into a war zone. We need to ensure that these families don't have to choose between serving their families and serving their country. Specialist Ron Gebur gave the ultimate sacrifice, and I offer this amendment in his honor.”