John Shimkus: “I have become frustrated that we are losing sight of why we have a military. The mission of the United States military…”

“I have become frustrated that we are losing sight of why we have a military. The mission of the United States military is to fight and win our Nation's wars. Now, many people don't want us to have a military, I understand that, but I think the best hope for democracy and freedom in the world today, even in our work with NATO, is a strong, powerful, committed, professional United States military, and we work on that with our NATO allies. The mission of the infantry is to get close with and destroy our enemies. Destroy our enemies, to go after them and fight them and send down the message that we're going to fight you until you leave us alone. Now, there are folks on the other side who don't want us to have that. I am one that thinks it's necessary to have in this country. So I don't think we're in conflict. I do think that we have lost some faith in our leadership in the military. I still have it. I still think our career military officers will make the tough call to deploy and use their troops.”