On the recordApril 28, 1999
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, in 1968 to 1970 I was a physician in the Vietnam War and dealt with the casualties from that war. That war was started on this floor by a voice vote. If we think about the fact that we committed 500,000 people, 50,000 of whom are dead and on a memorial not very far from this building, on the basis of a voice vote, it seems to me that the United States Congress can spend more than 1 hour deciding whether or not we are going to go into this issue. Mr. Speaker, yesterday we had a debate for a few minutes and got out of here at 4 o'clock. Last week we came back here. One day we gave a gold medal to Rosa Parks. That is all we did that day. What have we got on our calendar that prevents us from spending the time to give the Members of this House the opportunity to speak about something, where we are potentially sending our young men and women to die? I think this rule should be defeated.
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