[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 121 (Wednesday, July 23, 2008)]
[House]
[Page H7043]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  HONORING CORPORAL JASON DANE HOVATER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WAMP. Mr. Speaker, tonight I come to the floor to honor a great 
American hero, Corporal Jason Dane Hovater, who gave his life 10 days 
ago in defense of the United States of America in Afghanistan. Corporal 
Hovater was killed when 200 militants with machine guns, rocket-
propelled grenades and mortars attacked his outpost. Thankfully, they 
were beaten back after a fierce firefight that lasted hours. But nine 
American soldiers lost their lives.
  Besides Corporal Hovater, First Lieutenant Jonathan Brostrom of 
Hawaii; Sergeant Israel Garcia of California; Corporal Jonathan Ayers 
of Snellville, Georgia; Corporal Jason Bogar of Seattle, Washington; 
Corporal Matthew Phillips of Jasper, Georgia; Corporal Pruitt Rainey of 
Haw River, North Carolina; Corporal Gunnar Zwilling of Florissant, 
Missouri; and Private Sergio Abad of Kentucky, with the C Company, 2nd 
Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 
these nine patriots gave it all they had. And they laid down their life 
for our Nation.
  Yesterday morning, I had the privilege of being with Corporal 
Hovater's family at the Holly Gamble funeral home in Lake City, 
Tennessee.
  I was with Jeanna, his wife of only 19 months. They only had 6 weeks 
together before he went to train, before he spent 16 months on the 
ground in Afghanistan. He was set to come home 1 week after his death.
  I met his mother, Kathy; his father, Gerald; his sister, Jessica; his 
brothers, Joe and Jesse Darrin; Sean and David. They're very active at 
the Lake City Christian Fellowship where the memorial service was held 
Monday night. It was a praise service. You see, he was a worship 
leader. His family is very involved in this ministry. When I met his 
family, it was like no other time that I have spent with a family of a 
wounded or slain soldier. Unfortunately, he was the ninth soldier from 
Tennessee's Third Congressional District, and every time we've lost one 
in the last 4 years, I have had the privilege of being with the family 
and presenting them a Bible engraved in their memory. But this was 
unusual. In this family's eyes, all of them, all of them, was the love 
of their Lord.
  The humility, the genuine appreciation of our Nation, they honored 
their son. They believed deep in their soul that God was with him when 
he was conceived, throughout his life, God was with him when he died on 
this Earth, and he is with God today. They believe deeply that this is 
what God ordained for him, to lay his life down voluntarily for our 
country. I had the privilege to say to them, thank you from a grateful 
Nation, from every one in the Congress and the executive branch, to 
thank this family for this extraordinary sacrifice and to share with 
them that every time freedom has been handed from one generation to the 
next, it has been by the blood of these American patriots who are 
willing to stand between a threat and our civilian population and pay 
the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf.
  Corporal Jason Dane Hovater is an American hero in every sense, and 
we thank him so much for his sacrifice. And we thank this extraordinary 
family for their witness and their testimony and their faith and their 
goodness and their trust in God Almighty that Jason is in his arms and 
they will see him again. I felt it. We love him, and we are so grateful 
in east Tennessee that they gave their husband, their son, their 
brother, for all of us. And with his eight comrades, we honor you on 
the floor of the House tonight and we thank you for standing up for us 
and giving us, as Abraham Lincoln once said, ``your last full 
measure.''
  We honor you, Corporal Hovater, as a great American patriot and hero. 
We will always remember, and we will never forget.

                          ____________________