[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 1675]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2115
                    CORPORAL DUSTIN LEE MEMORIAL ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, I have introduced H.R. 4631. The text is ``to 
authorize the adoption of a military working dog by the family of a 
deceased or seriously wounded member of the Armed Forces who was the 
handler of the dog.'' This act may be cited as the ``Corporal Dustin 
Lee Memorial Act.''
  Mr. Speaker, 2 years ago, it was brought to my attention that a 
family in Mississippi, Rachel and Jerome Lee, their son, Dustin, a 
marine, was killed in Iraq for this Nation. Also with Dustin was his 
dog, Lex, who was wounded. In fact, the Marine Corps brought the dog, 
Lex, to Dustin's funeral.
  Mr. and Mrs. Lee gave their son for this country, and all they asked 
of this Nation was to please let them have Lex, the dog that their son, 
Dustin, loved so much. Well, we all live here in Washington in a 
bureaucratic world, and there is some reason I guess for that, but the 
Marine Corps said to the family that Lex has 2 more years of service 
before he can be retired.
  I heard about this story, and I called Mr. and Mrs. Lee in 
Mississippi. They told me, Congressman, we understand that this dog is 
very important to the cause of our Nation, but this dog meant so much 
to our son that that's all we would like to have. Well, I want to thank 
General Mike Regner, who I called and asked General Regner, is there 
any way we can expedite the retirement of Lex? And he said we will do 
our best to make this happen.
  Well, these dogs that are trained work magnificently for this 
country. In fact, they give their lives many times to save a service 
person by seeking out these IEDs and other explosives. Well, it took 
about 3 weeks--that is not a whole lot of time, it really is not, but I 
think in the situation of these dogs, when the handler is killed for 
this country or seriously wounded, that we should be able to expedite 
this small gift to the family.
  I will say to my colleagues, I am going to send a ``Dear Colleague'' 
around in the next few days that the Department of Defense has worked 
with us on. They support this legislation, so I hope that my colleagues 
will join me, and let's move this legislation through the House I hope 
expeditiously.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a photograph taken by the family. When they got 
Lex home, they let Lex remember Dustin by having his clothes and his 
boots that had been returned from Iraq, and they let Lex remember the 
fragrance of their son. Then they took Lex to the cemetery--this is a 
rather large cemetery--and they said to Lex, Find Dustin, find Dustin. 
And the dog ran around the cemetery and then came up to the headstone. 
This is the headstone. It is a picture of their son Dustin with Lex. 
Dustin is kneeling and Lex is sitting there beside him. Lex came up to 
this headstone and laid down beside the headstone.
  So with that, Mr. Speaker, I will ask my colleagues, please join us 
in H.R. 4639. This is the least we can do for the family or the wounded 
individual.
  Mr. Speaker, as I always do, I ask God to please bless our men and 
women in uniform. I ask God to please bless the families of our men and 
women in uniform. I ask God, in His loving arms, to hold the families--
like the Lee family--who gave a child dying for freedom in Afghanistan 
and Iraq. And Mr. Speaker, I will ask three times from the bottom of my 
heart: God please, God please, God please continue to bless America.

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