Ensuring Military Readiness Through Stability and Predictability Deployment Policy Act of 2007
Floor Speech
ENSURING MILITARY READINESS THROUGH STABILITY AND PREDICTABILITY DEPLOYMENT POLICY ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - August 02, 2007)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member and my good friend, Congresswoman Tauscher.
This is a tough bill, and I appreciate it being brought to the floor. People know I come here heartfelt because of my 25 years connected with the United States Army. I don't like to throw that out. You know that. An Army Ranger and Army paratrooper, still an active reservist, but I have become frustrated that we are losing sight of why we have a military.
The mission of the United States military is to fight and win our Nation's wars. Now, many people don't want us to have a military, I understand that, but I think the best hope for democracy and freedom in the world today, even in our work with NATO, is a strong, powerful, committed, professional United States military, and we work on that with our NATO allies.
The mission of the infantry is to get close with and destroy our enemies. Destroy our enemies, to go after them and fight them and send down the message that we're going to fight you until you leave us alone.
Now, there are folks on the other side who don't want us to have that. I am one that thinks it's necessary to have in this country. So I don't think we're in conflict. I do think that we have lost some faith in our leadership in the military. I still have it. I still think our career military officers will make the tough call to deploy and use their troops.
I'm going a little bit slower than I hoped because I'm talking from the heart, but more than just the officer rank, it's the career enlisted leaders. In the Army, it's the command sergeant majors all the way up, from the commanding down to the first sergeant in the company. You have to believe that they will raise the issue about whether their troops cannot perform the mission. That is part of who they are. And when you fight in the trenches and you develop that bond that makes you an effective fighting force, how dare they not think about their soldiers first. I think they do.
I believe in the military. I think their heart's right, and our volunteer military is the best on the face of the earth today. I know we want to keep it that way.
I'm not sure this is the right way to go, but I just wanted to come down and talk from the military's perspective.
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