Don Bacon: “I thank my very respected friend from Wisconsin today for yielding. We had our 5-minute speeches cut short, so I…”

“I thank my very respected friend from Wisconsin today for yielding. We had our 5-minute speeches cut short, so I appreciate the opportunity. Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to recognize Dean C. Mathisen for 20 years of service to our Nation and Nebraska's Second District. Dean is retiring from Federal service at the end of the 116th Congress in January 2021. Dean is a former U.S. Army officer and a combat veteran. He served as a field artillery officer on Active Duty in the U.S. Army during the Cold War, on its front lines in West Germany. He was next assigned as a military police officer who deployed to the desert during the first Gulf war. Dean also commanded a transportation company in the U.S. Army Reserves. In Nebraska's Second District, Dean served over 12 years as a senior constituent liaison for the Honorable Lee Terry from 2002 to January 2015. During this tenure, he was instrumental in identifying the need and communicating with the Department of Veterans Affairs about bringing a national veterans cemetery to the district. Dean was a key element in finding the resources to enable the first homeless veterans housing project in Omaha to be completed as well. Dean then crossed the Missouri River in Iowa in 2016 and continued his Federal service in the office of the Honorable Joni Ernst. Here, he continued to use his personal experience to aid him in understanding the needs of our military servicemembers and veterans while solving constituent issues.…”