[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3103-3104]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       IN HONOR OF CHARLIE WILSON

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I rise in support and honor of the late 
Congressman Charlie Wilson of the Second Congressional District of 
Texas. I didn't know Congressman Wilson in his salad days. I didn't get 
elected until 1984. By that time, he had calmed down, apparently quite 
a bit. But I can now state it, since the statute of limitations has 
expired, I voted for Congressman Wilson six times. I lived in east 
Texas, in Crockett, Texas, in Houston County, in the Second 
Congressional District, and we didn't have a Republican primary, and I 
don't recall that we had a Republican opponent against Congressman 
Wilson in the time that I lived in Crockett. And so my choice was to 
vote for him or not vote at all. I chose to vote for him.
  I never went to one of his town hall meetings down at the courthouse 
on the square because I felt like he was doing a very good job for 
those constituents in east Texas, including myself. He was a strong 
defender of the military, very strong on what we call Texas values. He 
worked quite a bit on the Big Thicket in east Texas. He was an 
environmentalist ahead of his time.
  When I got elected in 1984, I made it a point to get to know 
Congressman Wilson, or Charlie Wilson, because I had been his 
constituent and I knew of his reputation. I just felt like he would be 
a good guy to get to know. And he was. He was a really, really good 
person. When his mother died, I felt as a courtesy that I should attend 
the funeral so that there would be some

[[Page 3104]]

Texas Congressmen at his mother's funeral in Trinity, Texas. As it 
turned out, I was the only Congressman that attended. I went up to him. 
And we didn't really know each other that well, but I said, Charlie, 
I'm here if you need me to do anything. I didn't really know your 
mother very well, but I know she must have been a good woman if you 
were her son. And he never forgot that. From then on, anything I needed 
from Congressman Wilson, if he could do it, he did it. But he also 
asked you things.
  I will never forget out on the steps of the Capitol one time he came 
up to me and he said, Joe I need a favor. I said, What is it, Charlie? 
He said, Well, I need a Republican sponsor for an amendment in the 
Appropriations Committee. I said, Okay. What is it? He said, I can't 
tell you. I said, Well, how much money is it? He said, I can't tell 
you. I said, Well, how many years is it? He said, I can't tell you. I 
said, Well what can you tell me? He said, If you do this for me, I will 
do almost anything you want in the Appropriations Committee for you. So 
I didn't know. To this day, I don't know what that amendment was. But 
after reading some of the history of that time and that era, my 
assumption is that I was the Republican sponsor of an amendment that 
got funding for the black box programs in Afghanistan for Stinger 
missiles. Now I don't know that, Madam Speaker, but that's kind of the 
way he operated.
  Another story I can tell you is that I was standing here back behind 
the rail one afternoon and we had a series of votes going on, and 
Charlie came up to me and he said, What are you doing in a month or so? 
I said, I don't know. He said, Well, I'm going to take a little trip. I 
said, Where are you going? He said, We'll go anywhere you want to go. I 
said, Where do you want to go? He said, Well, I have to go to 
Afghanistan, and I have to go to Morocco. And if you'll come with me, 
after that we'll go anywhere you want to go. I said, Well, I'll think 
about it. Well, I asked my chief of staff and she said no. I asked my 
wife, and she said no. So then I had to tell Congressman Wilson that I 
couldn't go. That's the trip that he took the Miss World on where he 
ended up going to Afghanistan.
  Another story that I can tell you is that a couple of us Congressmen 
were walking down the street one day, and we saw Congressman Wilson 
walking over to the Capitol, and he had this very strikingly beautiful 
young woman that he was walking with. Congressman Dan Burton said, 
Charlie, that woman is as pretty as Miss Universe. And he says, It is 
Miss Universe. And it was.
  He also loved cats--I mean the four-legged cats. They ran all over 
his office and all over the Rayburn building on the floor. As far as I 
know, House Administration never chastised him. When you walked into 
his office, right after Afghanistan, he had a live Stinger missile. He 
was very proud of that.
  I see that my time is about to expire. So for all of his family 
members and constituents, there were a lot of Republicans that loved 
Charlie Wilson. He will be missed. He was a great patriot, a great son 
of Texas, and somebody that those who knew him, he was very, very loyal 
to. So God bless Charlie Wilson and his family.

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