Chris Smith: “I want to thank my good friend, Mr. Harper, and Ms. Esty for their strong support for the bill. Ms. Esty is one of the…”

“I want to thank my good friend, Mr. Harper, and Ms. Esty for their strong support for the bill. Ms. Esty is one of the cosponsors of the bill. I also want to thank Chairwoman Miller for her leadership and good work in shepherding this important bill through the committee and Ranking Member Brady for his support of the initiative. I also appreciate the work of the committee staff, including Brad Walvort and Bob Sensenbrenner, and my legislative director, Cate Benedetti, and especially Majority Leader McCarthy and Kelly Dixon for posting the bill for consideration this afternoon. I do rise in strong support and urge my colleagues to support the Gold Star Families Voices Act, legislation designed to ensure that immediate family members of servicemembers who are killed or missing in action or have died as a result of their service participate in the Library of Congress' Veterans History Project. Congress created the project, as Mr. Harper pointed out, to collect and catalog stories of American war veterans. We did this in 2000 to help preserve their memories so that current and future generations may hear and better appreciate the realities of war and the sacrifices borne by those who served in uniform. The project is designed to turn their memories into our history to memorialize the lives of heroes whose selfless sacrifice has contributed, and continues to contribute, to our freedom and liberty and our collective understanding of who we are as a Nation.…”