[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14526-14527]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Jones) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, this Friday will be the 10th anniversary of 
our troops being committed to Afghanistan. This commitment by the 
previous administration and Congress was justified because bin Laden 
and al Qaeda were responsible for 9/11. But now bin Laden is dead; al 
Qaeda is disbursed all around the world.
  Beside me is a poster of an honor guard carrying a flag-draped coffin 
off a plane at Dover Air Force Base. To accompany the photo, I will 
read into the Record an editorial from Bob Schieffer titled ``The Real 
Cost of War'':

       I was in an airport lounge the other day when I saw a woman 
     across the way. Why I kept staring, I don't know. Maybe it 
     was just that she seemed so sad. And then I understood. And I 
     looked away, hoping she had not seen me stare. Because in her 
     lap was an American flag, neatly folded into a triangle and 
     placed in a clear plastic case, a flag folded the way it 
     always is when it is given to a soldier's family as the 
     soldier's coffin is lowered into the grave.
       I figured her to be a soldier's mother, and I couldn't help 
     but wonder what memories that flag evoked as she held it 
     there. Did it remind her of the first time she had seen her 
     child in the delivery room, or was it the memory of seeing 
     him go off to school that first day, or when he brought home 
     the prize from the science fair, or maybe made the touchdown, 
     or gave her the first Valentine when he wrote out, ``Mommy, I 
     love you.''
       I keep thinking about all the talk in Washington about the 
     high cost of defense and how we have to cut the Pentagon 
     budget before it bankrupts the country. But as I watched that 
     woman, budgets seemed to be such a small part of all of it. 
     No, the real cost of war is not what we pay in dollars and 
     cents. The real cost is what we take from a mother who is 
     left with just a memory and a neatly folded flag in a clear 
     plastic case.

  This was over a year ago, and I want to thank Bob Schieffer. I don't 
think it can be said better than what he said that day, which I just 
read into the Record.

[[Page 14527]]

  Why this Congress continues to complain about budgets and cuts and 
deficits and debts, and our young men and women are walking the roads 
of Afghanistan, getting their legs blown off and getting killed, and we 
sit here in Congress and don't bring it up as an issue.
  I want to thank my friends on both sides of the aisle and the 
Republicans on this side of the aisle who are trying to say to Mr. 
Obama, No, don't leave them there until 2014. Karzai is a crook. He is 
a corrupt leader. You are spending $10 billion a month in Afghanistan, 
and you can't even audit the books in Afghanistan. And kids are dying. 
Yet right here in America, we are cutting programs for children to get 
a pint of milk in school; and we are saying to a senior citizen, No 
sandwich at the senior citizens center because we can't afford it. But, 
Mr. Karzai, we will send you $10 billion.
  Mr. Speaker, it's borrowed money. It's not even Uncle Sam's money. 
It's probably Uncle Chang's money. But more importantly than the money 
is what Bob Schieffer said: It's the pain of war. And this Congress 
needs to come together and say to Mr. Obama, Let's bring them home this 
year, next year, but not wait until 2014, 2015.
  Mr. Speaker, I will close, as I always do on the floor of the House, 
please, God, bless our men and women in uniform. Please, God, bless the 
families of our men and women in uniform. Please, God, in your loving 
arms, hold the families who have given a child dying for freedom in 
Afghanistan and Iraq. I ask God to bless the House and the Senate that 
we will do what is right in the eyes of God for its people. I ask God 
to give wisdom, strength, and courage to President Obama, that he will 
do what is right in the eyes of God's people. And I will say three 
times, God please, God please, God please continue to bless America.

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