[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 7401]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         SUPPORTING OUR TROOPS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Boozman). Pursuant to the order of the 
House of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I would like to make some 
comments on the war in Iraq. Most of us voted for the resolution to 
authorize the President to use force in Iraq to help solve the problem 
of weapons of mass destruction. Voting for that resolution makes us at 
least somewhat responsible for the young men and women in the military 
going into harm's way. And even though we know it is the right thing to 
do, it still gives one pause for all of the suffering and the sorrow. 
Now we have several of our military who have been captured, or missing, 
or who have died. The challenge for this country is that if Saddam gets 
away with it, other tyrants in other rogue nations think that it also 
is going to be to their advantage to develop these weapons of mass 
destruction. This will make the world much less secure and this country 
much less secure.
  I pray for not only the young men and women soldiers, but for their 
families. When I was 21 years old, we got a phone call notifying us 
that my brother, Chan, who was 23, that his jet plane went down and 
that he was killed. That grief never left our family. So the sacrifice 
is great for families. I, for one, am convinced that the war is the 
right thing to do. If we were to delay, it would mean that much greater 
of a challenge for us in the future.
  Recently a newspaper in my district in Michigan ran an editorial 
saying that people have the right to protest against the war; and they 
do, certainly. But now that we are in the war, I think we should 
encourage everybody to rethink what protesting does. Before we went in, 
maybe you can protest and maybe it is going to end up in a decision not 
to be there. But now, we have thousands of our young men and women over 
there that need our support. We are in combat. Imagine an analogy where 
a mom did not want her son to go out for boxing because it is too 
dangerous, or football; but once the decision was made, does she not 
cheer him and go to the game and cheer him on? Or a mom and dad that 
did not want their daughter to go out for basketball because, after 
all, that was sort of wrong for a young lady to do. That was a boy's 
sport. But once that young lady goes out for the team, the parents 
cheer her on and say, good game, do your best. Or what happened in 
Vietnam when we literally spat on some of our soldiers and sailors when 
they came home?
  My point, Mr. Speaker, is that to demonstrate against the war makes 
the challenge for our military greater. As an old Air Force veteran I 
assure my colleagues that it is true, it makes it harder for our 
military, when people now demonstrate and say, look, you are doing an 
immoral thing, you are doing the wrong thing. It makes it that much 
more difficult.
  We are in it. Let us cheer for our team and give our total support 
for the action of our military men and women that are now over in this 
war in Iraq. Give them our prayers and certainly give their families 
and their loved ones our prayers.

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