Joe Cunningham: “there are not two more Members I respect more than the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Skelton] and the gentleman from…”

“there are not two more Members I respect more than the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Skelton] and the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha]. I have not heard the tape. I will listen to it tonight, if I can. If that is the case, then, yes, she should have her day. But the problem is the day will be 2 or 3 months from now, when all this issue is dead. Joe Paterno, one of my favorite coaches at Penn State, told a story when I was in a football clinic. He said his dad was in the Army and hated the Marine Corps. He said they were a bunch of peacocks. You can imagine Joe Paterno's amazement and the father's amazement and this old Italian family when his oldest brother came up and said he was going to join the Marine Corps. The father in his old way said, ``Go off, my son, and become a peacock.'' And he did. This is a son that never spoke back to his father a day in his life in that old Italian family. The day he came back after boot camp in his finery, his father said, ``Look, here is that peacock.'' And a man that had never spoken an ill word to his Italian father in his life put his finger in his chest and says, ``Don't you ever say anything bad about the United States Marine Corps. It can lick any 10 Army regiments.'' The gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter] would disagree with that.”