[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 181 (Tuesday, November 7, 2017)]
[House]
[Page H8527]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          THE REAL COST OF WAR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Jones) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, approximately 5 weeks ago, we tragically lost 
four soldiers in Niger: Staff Sergeant Bryan Black, Sergeant La David 
Johnson, Staff Sergeant Dustin Wright, and Staff Sergeant Jeremy 
Johnson. As recently as this past week, we lost a soldier in 
Afghanistan, Sergeant First Class Stephen B. Cribben.
  To honor those I have just named, and their families, I would like to 
close by reading a September 26, 2010, editorial by Bob Schieffer, the 
host of ``Face the Nation.'' The title of his editorial was: ``The Real 
Cost of War.''
  ``I was in an airport lounge the other day when I saw a woman across 
the way. Why I kept staring, I don't know. Maybe it was just that she 
seemed so sad. And then I understood. And I looked away, hoping she had 
not seen me stare.
  ``Because in her lap was an American flag, neatly folded into a 
triangle and placed in a clear plastic case--a flag folded the way it 
always is when it is given to a soldier's family as the soldier's 
coffin is lowered into the grave.
  ``I figured her to be a soldier's mother, and I couldn't help but 
wonder what memories that flag evoked as she held it there.
  ``Did it remind her of the first time she had seen her child in the 
delivery room, or was it the memory of seeing him go off to school that 
first day, or when he brought home the prize from the science fair, or 
maybe made the touchdown, or gave her the first Valentine when he wrote 
out, `Mommy, I love you.'
  ``I keep thinking about all the talk in Washington about the high 
costs of defense and how we have to cut the Pentagon budget before it 
bankrupts the country.
  ``But as I watched the woman, budgets seemed to be such a small part 
of all of it.
  ``No, the real cost of war is not what we pay in dollars and cents.
  ``The real cost is what we take from a mother who is left with just a 
memory--and a neatly-folded flag in a clear plastic case.''
  Mr. Speaker, I share that with the House because I do not understand 
why, after 16 years in Afghanistan, we cannot have a debate on the 
floor of the House by all the Members here, of both parties, of whether 
we should continue to stay in Afghanistan or not.
  After 16 years, we have spent over $1 trillion, 2,300 Americans have 
been killed, and over 20,000 wounded, but the House does not have a 
debate.
  I call on Mr. Ryan to please, as Speaker of the House, initiate the 
committees of jurisdiction to mark up a new AUMF and bring it to the 
floor and let the 435 Members of the House have a debate, no matter 
whether they want to stay or come home. But by not debating, we are not 
meeting our constitutional responsibility.

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