Political Quotes

“the young men and women who serve in our Nation's Armed Forces are not Democrats, they are not Republicans; they are Americans. And I am happy to say that I feel like the package that was put together was not put together by Democrats or Republicans, but by Americans who care about our Nation's defense. And I think it does some very good things. First and foremost, I would like to commend my colleague, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley) for his efforts in working with us to delay the next round of base closures. As we have pointed out, we are growing the Army. Almost everyone in the Army is spoken for. They are either in Iraq, just got home from Iraq or getting ready to go to Iraq. This is a time of great uncertainty, and we do not need to further complicate that uncertainty by closing bases with a number that was artificially picked prior to September 11. It is my understanding that there will be efforts to put the next round of base closures back into the bill. I would encourage my colleagues to vote against that. We have come to a very fair compromise when people like me, who would just as soon do away with BRAC entirely, and a level head like the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley) said, we should delay it. And I support that delay. We should continue to work and we continue to work on programs that protect our troops.”