[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 20278]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1440
                          WELCOME HOME, TROOPS

  (Ms. SCHAKOWSKY asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. As of today, the war in Iraq is over.
  This is a monumental day on which we must celebrate the service and 
sacrifice of the 1.5 million young men and women in uniform who served 
there and of the nearly 4,500 Americans who died there along with tens 
of thousands of Iraqis. We welcome our heroes home, and we pledge to 
honor their service with the care and benefits they deserve. For them I 
wear this yellow ribbon.
  I also congratulate and thank the thousands of activists who worked 
tirelessly for nearly a decade to bring our troops home.
  I thank the Illinois State senator, who, on October 2, 2002, stood 
before a crowd in Chicago and said, ``I don't oppose all wars . . . I 
oppose a rash war,'' a war, he said, which ``distracts us from a rise 
in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median 
income.'' That State senator was Barack Obama 9 years ago. Later, as a 
candidate for President, he promised to end the war in Iraq--a promise 
fulfilled today.
  Welcome home, troops. And thank you, Mr. President.

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