THE OFFICIAL TRUTH SQUAD -- (House of Representatives - March 01, 2006)
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Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I think your conversation is exactly correct, that right now in America, when I visit the troops in Iraq, the young men and women there ask me one question that I cannot answer, and that is, they ask how come my parents do not see the good things that I am doing on TV at night. How come they only see the bad things? Why is the press trying to mislead the public?
So I appreciate your truth squad here where you begin to talk about the magnificent things that our troops are doing because, when I am there, our troops tell us that we are winning in the neighborhoods and the hearts of the Iraqi people and the hearts of people who distrusted us.
I had three young men there from New Mexico. They call themselves the Three Amigos. They were telling me, when we were out on patrol the first days that we were there, and this was way back at the beginning of the war, they said that the people would peek out their window and open the window curtain and take a look out. The next week, maybe the window curtain was pulled open, the door still locked, the windows down. Gradually, the door opened up, and they would let their kids stand in the door and look at the Americans.
Then they talked about the thing that I found in the Philippines when I was in the Air Force flying into Vietnam when you walk out among kids, and Asia and kids in other parts of the country, the thing they want to do is they want to touch the hair on your arm. So these young troops are saying, you know, the strangest things, the kids came out and the moms are holding them up to our face where the kids can see. They want to touch the hair on our arm. It was exactly the same thing I had experienced back in 1971, 1972, and 1973.
It brings down to me the fact that these Iraqis had been told for 35 years that the Americans will kill you. The truth is Saddam Hussein would kill them. He was always telling them an untruth; and when the truth was known, then the Iraqi people began to settle down.
I would say also that, in this country, if there is a big issue today, one we as a Nation face, it is truth. It is the understanding of what objective truth is. It is the understanding of who can tell us and who will tell us the truth. So I appreciate the gentleman's efforts to bring some truth to this floor because often we have got our friends who come and they talk about special interests and are pointing at the other team. The truth is, the biggest special interest group in this body are the trial lawyers, and the biggest special interest group in the other body are trial lawyers. They are the ones that are getting the most influence here. Yet our friends seem to forget that they are a special interest group and they are causing great outcomes in legislation.
So I appreciate the gentleman's efforts to bring truth to the floor of the House of Representatives and especially as it regards our troops because our troops are doing magnificent things as they are in harm's way every day. We as a grateful Nation should always take the time to say thank you, not only to the troops but also to families of the troops, for being willing to be the last wedge between tyranny that originates in the Middle East and freedoms that we are trying to export from this country. I think that we owe all of our families and all of our troops a good round of thanks from a grateful Nation.
I salute the gentleman for his efforts.
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