[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 71 (Wednesday, May 25, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H3900]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     TRICARE FOR GUARD AND RESERVE

  (Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Madam Speaker, we have a lot to remember 
on Memorial Day. Today in south Mississippi, four families will be 
receiving death notices. Every one of those families had a young 
guardsman over in Iraq who was killed yesterday.
  Last Friday, I visited Walter Reed. Five young soldiers were wounded, 
four of them amputees, every one of them Guardsmen Or Reservists.
  Just last week the Committee on Armed Services passed an amendment 
that would allow Guardsmen and Reservists to buy TRICARE insurance for 
themselves and their families. Somewhere between the committee, where 
it passed, and the Committee on Rules, where it failed, it was blocked 
on a straight party-line vote.
  So as we remember Memorial Day, I hope every Guardsman in America 
will remember the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the gentleman 
from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart), the gentleman from Washington 
(Mr. Hastings), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions), the gentleman 
from Florida (Mr. Putnam), the gentlewoman from West Virginia (Mrs. 
Capito), the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Bishop) and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), 
eight of the nine who never served a day in uniform who voted to see 
that our Nation's Guardsmen and Reservists cannot buy Federal health 
insurance.

                          ____________________