Political Quotes

“I think clearly all of us should have been able to sit down and come up with a resolution that would be united and that would send a clear voice to all of the world how much we support our troops. We are going to have 4 hours of debate, and there are so many important things we should be discussing, like the fact that we failed to provide our troops with critical protection and equipment that they need, from interceptive body armor to anti-jamming devices, to armored humvees. Yesterday, I met with Brian Hart, the father of Private First Class John Hart who was killed in Iraq last October when the unarmored humvee that he was patrolling in was ambushed and sprayed with bullets. Just days before his death, Pfc. Hart called his father and told him how unsafe he felt riding around in humvees that lacked bulletproof shielding or reinforced doors. The story of John Hart is all too familiar. A couple of months ago, the Defense Department stated that 29 American troops had been killed and 290 wounded on attacks on humvees. Now I hear they are not even tracking those numbers anymore, but I do know that of the 18 soldiers killed in Iraq from Massachusetts, 6 died in unarmored humvees or trucks. Look at this chart. Almost 80 percent of the 12,500 humvees deployed in Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom lack reinforced windows and doors.”