[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 24 (Wednesday, February 24, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H799-H800]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 IN MEMORY OF THE HONORABLE JOHN MURTHA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to speak to 
the memory of one of my close friends, one of my colleagues, my 
partner, and a man with whom I have spent so many hours, so many days 
and for so many years as we've worked together on the National Defense 
Appropriations bill, and I'm speaking of the late Chairman Jack Murtha.
  In keeping with his legislative management style, I'll be brief 
because, as we presented our Defense Appropriations bills, the last 
meeting that we would have somewhere in the Chamber here would be, Hey, 
look, this is a good bill. It's not controversial. Let's pass it quick. 
We ought to be able to get it done in 8 or 10 minutes, which we 
normally did.
  Jack was a good leader, a good chairman. When we had discussions on 
the hundreds and hundreds of issues in that bill, his concern always 
was what is best to keep America safe, what is best to keep Americans 
safe, and what is best to give our soldiers the tools that they need, 
the technology that they need to do their job, to carry out their 
mission, and to protect themselves while they're doing that.
  I expressed my condolences and my sadness to his wife, Joyce, and 
their children. I know of the sadness that they experienced here a 
couple of weeks ago as Jack left the Congress, left the family, and 
left this life. I really was saddened and regretted and felt extremely 
bad that I was not able to attend his funeral, but Beverly and I had a 
tragic event of our own during that same period.
  But I wanted to mention that Beverly, my wife, knew Jack Murtha very 
well because we would oftentimes be at the same military hospital with 
him visiting troops, wounded troops and their families. And I remember 
the first day that my wife ever ran into Jack Murtha at Walter Reed 
Hospital, and she had been talking with the wife of a soldier who had 
serious physical problems, but the family had financial problems.

                              {time}  1715

  She said, Hey, Mr. Murtha, give me your wallet. And Jack Murtha took 
out his wallet and handed it to her, and she took out all of the money 
and handed it to the soldier's wife and then gave Jack back his empty 
wallet. And so she also had a special relationship.
  But we were not able to attend Jack's funeral. During that same 
period of time, my son Billy and his wife, Ashley, had become pregnant 
some time ago, and everybody was excited about that. And then one day, 
they picked us up at the airport coming back from Washington, and we 
had lunch together. And they announced that they had just been to the 
doctor, and we were going to have twin granddaughters. You talk about 
being excited and cheers and tears. But that was not to be. Twenty 
weeks into the pregnancy, something happened.

[[Page H800]]

Things went wrong. The two little girls, Taylor Ann and Riley Grace, 
were born alive and lived only a couple of hours until their little 
hearts quit beating.
  And so we were going through that same grief at about the same time 
that Joyce and her family were going through the grief of losing Jack 
Murtha.
  I lost a friend. Congress lost a powerful legislator. He didn't speak 
on the floor very often. He was never boisterous. You never saw him--
well, seldom--shouting and waving his arms, but he knew what was going 
on. And he affected what was happening in the legislation.
  Some of our colleagues used to joke that he would sit back in this 
corner while I sat back in that corner so that between the two of us, 
we could watch everything that was happening in the House Chamber at 
any given time. Well, there might have been something to that, but it 
was a good relationship.
  So I, again, I express my condolences. My own sadness of losing this 
friend, of losing this great American. And Mr. Speaker, I think Jack 
has left an emptiness that probably will not be filled for a long time, 
if ever. And I think those on the House floor, as we proceed with 
appropriations bills in the future, will recognize that without Jack 
Murtha here, things are a lot different.
  So God bless the family.

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