John Spratt: “I rise to vigorously support the quality-of-life provisions, the very modest quality-of-life provisions, but important…”

“I rise to vigorously support the quality-of-life provisions, the very modest quality-of-life provisions, but important provisions that my good friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin, has included in this bill. I would say that we have worked together to develop many of these proposals. We have winnowed them through several different processes, the personnel subcommittee, the Democratic side of the personnel subcommittee, the House Armed Services Committee. Go through this bill, $87 billion. It does all manner of things for Iraq and the Iraqi people, the Iraqi army, the Iraqi police force, and ask what it does for our troops. They are the ones who not only won the war, but in the aftermath of the war when there was a real vacuum, through improvisation saved the day. They are the ones who, right now, are the foot troops who are putting Iraq back together. They have been called for hard duty, they have been asked to extend their tours, and the least we can do for them and their families is to show some concern and say thank you, and that is what these provisions do.”