[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 8623]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        COMMENDING OUR SOLDIERS

  (Mr. DAVIS of Illinois asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, as I was about to come over, 
there was a young man in my office visiting one of my staffers, Lance 
Corporal Jason C. Smedley, and he was proudly displaying his Purple 
Heart. He had been wounded in an attack in An Nasiriya, Iraq, on March 
26, 2003, and is now home to recuperate, and as we talked about what he 
would do next, he said, ``I want to hurry up and get well so I can go 
back and rejoin my unit.''
  I was struck by that, struck by his seriousness, by his desire, and 
struck by the fact that he said that there is still much work to do, to 
try and rebuild what we are at this moment helping to tear down.
  So I simply commend again to all of the soldiers who are giving of 
themselves in this time in honor of their country, looking for a better 
future and a better tomorrow.

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