Steve Lynch: “I thank the gentleman from Washington for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 335, legislation to…”

“I thank the gentleman from Washington for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 335, legislation to allow President Biden to appoint General Lloyd J. Austin, III, as our next Secretary of Defense. Throughout my tenure on the National Security Subcommittee, I have had the personal opportunity to meet with and interact with General Austin on numerous occasions in the field during the course of several of our oversight investigations. {time} 1500 Beginning in the early stages of Operation Enduring Freedom, we met in Kabul, Afghanistan, during his deployment as commander of Combined Joint Task Force 180. I dealt with General Austin again in the midst of Operation Iraqi Freedom as well as during Operation New Dawn. We also met in Baghdad during his multiple deployments as commander of the Multinational Corps and commander of United States Forces-Iraq. And I have personally received multiple intelligence briefings from General Austin in his capacity as commander of U.S. Central Command. By the way, he was the first African American to lead that critically important combat command. Throughout the congressional investigations into the progress of U.S. military diplomatic and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and other regional conflicts, General Austin has never failed to provide us with direct access to the battlefield and the straight and honest and hard facts as he saw them on the ground.…”