On the recordDecember 12, 2014
I rise with honor and pleasure to be able to say thank you to my dear friend. I am the most junior Member, besides the Presiding Officer, in this body today. When I first came to the Senate, I asked to be on the Armed Services Committee. West Virginia has a proud heritage of an awful lot of people--percentage- wise probably more than most States--having served in all of the branches of the military. So that is very near and dear to me, and our National Guard is very near and dear to our State. So there were many reasons why I wanted to be on the Armed Services Committee. When I got here, it was one of the most toxic times of the political arena, if you will. It was not what I expected, to say the least. And seeing the toxic atmosphere that I came into, people would say it didn't used to be this way; it used to work. The process worked. The whole aura of the Senate was there, and we are losing that. That was their excuse for telling me that is why it is not working today, but it used to work. Then I became part of this committee called the Armed Services Committee with this unbelievable chairman whose name is Carl Levin. I watched and observed. I didn't say a whole lot at first because freshmen aren't supposed to, but I watched and I learned and I saw the system the way I imagined it probably was 20, 30, 40 years ago when it did work. I saw the Senate, and I was thinking, Why can't the rest of the Senate work the way the Armed Services Committee works?…
