[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15636]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         HONORING OUR VETERANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. For those of you who may be watching on your C-SPAN at 
home, you may wonder how it is that everything just has to be broken 
down Republican versus Democrat, right versus left. I think there is 
one special interest group in our country that there shouldn't be any 
disagreement about, it's a good special interest. And that's our 
Nation's veterans.
  We are consumed right now with a lot of problems our country has. But 
perhaps the families that's facing the greatest challenges right now 
are the families that have already borne the biggest sacrifice so that 
we could have elections today in my State and other States across the 
country and we could have an election this November.
  We are very good in this country at getting down on ourselves, 
berating our political system, saying it's no good. After you hear a 
colleague of mine like that talk about China, I think people get the 
picture of the fact we've got it pretty good in this country. For all 
intents and purposes it's not perfect, but as Winston Churchill said, 
``Democracy's the worst form of government except for all the others.'' 
Most places of the world people don't have rights of any kind even to 
lobby, a lobbyist, or a special interest. They just don't have rights.
  What makes our country so great and what we stand for as a people so 
great is that we can speak our mind. We can come to the floor and talk, 
just as my colleague did, about the one child per family policy in 
China. We can talk about the economy, as my other colleagues did before 
that.
  But let's just stop for a second and understand one thing. We would 
not have an economy if terrorists were in our malls today blowing up 
backpacks. Because of our veterans, our soldiers who have borne the 
battle, those terrorists, in large part due to their work, have been 
kept over there as opposed to coming here. Yes, that's cost us a lot of 
money as a country to fight those wars.
  But the cost, the indelible costs of this war is on those veterans 
who have suffered what many people would like to think, because there 
are no cures, no interventions, no treatments, permanent chronic damage 
as a result of the physical torment their bodies, their brains took 
serving our country.
  I am here to say good news. Good news is that if this country comes 
to our veterans' side and decides not just to talk a good game about 
supporting our veterans, but actually that we're going to do whatever 
it takes to save those veterans, because we constantly say, oh, the war 
is over, oh, the combat operations are over.

                              {time}  1920

  We are bringing them home safely. Try telling that to a veteran with 
traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress. The combat operations as 
we know them may have been concluded officially, but their war is just 
beginning, their war against the disabling symptoms of their service, 
of the casualties of their experience, fighting for us, saving our 
country, saving this world from more 9/11s.
  So what's our attitude going to be? Are we going to come to their 
rescue, or are we just going to talk a good game? Within the next 
couple of years we can come in with new cell recuperation, through stem 
cell research, restore and repair damaged brains, with the knowledge 
that we have of genetics. We can help avert all kinds of the other 
challenges they are going to face higher risks for because of their 
exposure to all of these conflicts on our behalf. They are going to be 
high risk.
  We can turn all those trip wires off with the research we can do now, 
not in 2 years from now, not in 4 years from now, not in any period of 
time. Because if you are one of those veterans and you have come home 
and you are suffering, you are saying to yourself, how long is it going 
to take before I get relief, before someone comes in and saves me as a 
prisoner of my war injury.
  We shouldn't make them wait any longer than is necessary to get to 
the cures and the answers that are going to set them free.

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