Political Quotes

“I rise, Mr. Speaker, to talk about duty, honor, and country. Many times, Members of this great body rise to talk about those who wear the uniform of the United States who have fallen in the Iraq or the Afghanistan theater and to recount their actions and to recount their mission and to praise their motive and their patriotism and their love of this great country. I rise tonight, Mr. Speaker, to talk about an American who was killed on the 24th of this month, not wearing the uniform of the United States in the military service, even though he had served in the military for some 31 years, but who was killed in a deadly area in Iraq as an American contractor, an American who had worked as a contractor for the Department of Defense and then the Department of State, Steven Farley. Steven Farley represented the very best of this country, and I have a picture here, Mr. Speaker, that I'd like to show the Members. This is him in his Navy uniform. Before he donned this Navy uniform and finished a career of 31 years in the U.S. military, he served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam. He was a man of service, and when he left his wonderful wife, Donna, and his family to go to Iraq, he told them that he understood that this was a difficult and dangerous mission. He worked on a provincial reconstruction team, and I think he represented a forgotten segment of this great effort, this effort to bring the sunlight of freedom to Iraq.”