Joe Crowley: “of the over 200,000 men and women who are in and around Iraq this evening, I want to just touch on one person who was…”

“of the over 200,000 men and women who are in and around Iraq this evening, I want to just touch on one person who was highlighted today in the New York Times, Captain Cynthia Brito from Woodside, Queens, my hometown. She is the daughter of Ecuadoran immigrants Angel Brito, a limousine driver, and his wife Ines, a jewelry worker. Captain Brito is a graduate from Fordham University in the Bronx, and she is serving as a dentist in the Army in the 561st Medical Company of V Corps. Captain Brito represents the best of the men and women who are fighting on our behalf on the front lines. She is the daughter of immigrants, a female officer in a male-dominated Army, and a dentist with medical training. We know that she will be on the front line. So much this evening has been said about the war, and I do not think enough has been said about our young men and women troops fighting over there. These mostly young men and women like Captain Brito are the ones truly making the sacrifice for our country. Men, women, white, African American, Latino, Asian, Christian, Jews and Muslims, they are all the faces of this country. Our prayers go out to each and every one of them this evening and to all their families, especially to Cynthia Brito, who makes all of us proud.”