Mark Kirk: “the Nation has been focused on the war declared by Hezbollah against Israel this past week. And while most of the media…”

“the Nation has been focused on the war declared by Hezbollah against Israel this past week. And while most of the media focused on stories of the conflict in Israel or Lebanon, they have not covered an aspect of the story critical to our fellow citizens, the protection and evacuation of American citizens from this conflict. On the day that Hezbollah started this war, we estimated that there were over 20,000 Americans in Lebanon. {time} 2000 I want to first commend our ambassador in Lebanon and the U.S. embassy team in Beirut for rapidly assembling the plans and data on the Americans to be saved. The U.S. Government regularly plans and sometimes executes what is called a noncombatant evacuation operation, or NEO in Pentagon parlance, to rescue Americans abroad. The scale of the Lebanese NEO was very, very large. This operation, assembled on very short notice, responded remarkably to a rapidly changing, massive movement of our fellow citizens. Some of the unsung heroes of the Lebanon NEO are the men and women of the United States Navy and Marine Corps. I want to give special thanks to the crews of the USS Nashville, the USS Trenton, and the USS Whidbey Island. Along with the merchant vessel Orient, the crews of these U.S. navy vessels rescued thousands of Americans from Lebanon over the last several days. The crews of these ships were backed by U.S. Marines flying helicopters to save the people in most urgent need.…”