[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 152 (Wednesday, September 24, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H9411-H9412]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




RECOGNIZING VICKI MIDDLETON FOR HER SERVICE TO THE CONGRESS AND TO THE 
                                COUNTRY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time.
  And to all of my colleagues, as I wrap up this 28 years, having come 
in with Ronald Reagan in 1981, I would be remiss if I didn't talk a 
little bit about this great Virginian who came in in 1981, in August--I 
think it was about August 27, 1981, walked into my office and took a 
job as a front desk person, the person who's right there in the front 
of the battlefield, to be a member of our office staff. Her name was 
Vicki Middleton, and she was the daughter of a dairy farmer in northern 
Virginia. And she came in with a can-do attitude, did a wonderful job 
at the front desk. And then she moved to be a legislative 
correspondent, and then our senior legislative person, and then, 
ultimately, my chief of staff.
  Mr. Speaker, the ability of this House to operate and this 
legislative body to operate is strongly reliant on these wonderful, 
great Americans, these professional staff members who can look through 
a sea of interests and crosscurrents of people with various stakes in 
the game and can clearly see the American interest, what's right for 
this country, and Vicki Middleton is one of those people.
  Mr. Speaker, I came in in 1981. I got on the Armed Services 
Committee. We rebuilt national defense. We came in with a 12.6 percent 
pay raise for our troops. We came back from those days when 1,000 petty 
officers a month were leaving the Navy because they couldn't afford to 
take care of their families on the pay they were making. We rebuilt and 
replaced lots of those old planes that wouldn't fly, and we fixed those 
ships that wouldn't steam and we built lots more of them. And we stood 
up to the Soviet Union and we brought down the Berlin Wall. And we 
brought a new era of freedom to hundreds of millions of people in this 
world.

[[Page H9412]]

  And behind those initial programs and those initiatives by President 
Ronald Reagan and later President George Herbert Walker Bush and then 
George W. Bush and the initiatives that we've undertaken with our armed 
services to bring freedom to others in the world and to protect our own 
security are those wonderful, great staff people who not only work on 
the Armed Services Committee, but also work in the Members' offices. 
And Vicki Middleton is first and foremost, in my mind, among those 
people.
  She is, in my estimation--and I know a few Members will argue with me 
because they have superb people working for them--I have always called 
her the best chief of staff on Capitol Hill.
  And so, Mr. Speaker, as I leave this job after 28 years, I thought it 
might be nice to give something to Vicki Middleton to make sure that 
she understands how much we value her great leadership and her 
friendship. And so my wife Lynn and I had this painting, which is a 
signed and numbered lithograph by Olaf Wieghorst, whom you may have 
heard me talk about on a couple of occasions here on the House floor, 
who is considered the ``Dean of Western artists'' from my hometown of 
San Diego, whose paintings, at the end of his life, he was the highest 
price western painter in the world. And he was a guy who was highly 
independent, strongly accountable, looked you right in the eye, never 
had a lick of painting lessons in his life, but had a great eye for 
movement, for color, and for the people of the West. And he painted 
this beautiful picture of western horses. And this inscription reads, 
``From Lynn and Duncan Hunter, for your 26 years of service to America, 
to Vicki Middleton, and for a lifetime of friendship, duty, honor and 
country.''
  I reflected today, Mr. Chairman, as I looked at all of our great 
staff members, that those terms, ``duty, honor and country,'' aren't 
reserved exclusively for the people who wear the uniform of the United 
States--although they certainly reflect those values of our uniformed 
personnel--but they also reflect the values of people like Vicki 
Middleton, who came from a small town in Virginia, came to Washington, 
D.C. with independence, with honesty, with integrity, and with a great 
deal of patriotism for her country, and dedicated 26 years to this 
institution and to the flag that waves over it.
  So, Mr. Speaker, Lynn and I are presenting this picture--in fact, 
we've already presented it to Vicki once; I think we're going to 
present it to her about five more times before this session is over--
but we're presenting this picture to her in recognition of her service 
to America.

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