Sean Duffy: “Today I rise with a heavy heart and offer condolences for the passing of former Secretary of Defense Mel Laird who…”

“Today I rise with a heavy heart and offer condolences for the passing of former Secretary of Defense Mel Laird who served under Richard Nixon. Secretary Laird was well known, among many things, for the drawdown of troops in Vietnam and, to the delight of many, he suspended the military draft. But for us in Wisconsin, Mel Laird was our Congressman, a young man who was elected at 30 years old and served from 1953 to 1969 until he went to the Secretary of Defense position. When I was running for Congress in the late spring, my phone rang, and on the other end this guy says: Hello, Mel Laird here. Could I speak with Sean Duffy? Well, Mel Laird is larger than life in Wisconsin, a guy from Marshfield. I nearly dropped the phone to think that the great Mel Laird would give me a call. He knew everyone and every issue in Wisconsin at the ripe old age of 90. He passed away yesterday. With a heavy heart, we mourn his passing. I would just like to say, he was a man that President Ford said was the can-do conservative from Wisconsin. He was a patriot more than a partisan, so much so that he was the mentor of Colin Powell. And to the friends he had on both sides of the aisle, they would be tickled to know that Hillary Clinton once interned for him. In true Wisconsin fashion, when I won the seat that he had formerly held, he sent me a Wisconsin block of cheddar cheese.…”