[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 17288]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  SIMPLE RESPECT FOR OUR VETERANS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AND THE 
                            U.S. TERRITORIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, as we end the 112th Congress, we are faced 
with two crises: the fiscal cliff crisis; and now a gun crisis and a 
mental health crisis, that comes to us from Newtown, Connecticut. When 
you consider that this is a Congress which has not been able to handle 
even minor issues, much less crises, one begins to wonder whether we 
will live up to what is required of any person who is a Member of the 
United States Congress.

                              {time}  1050

  This morning, I come for something less than a crisis for the 
country, something far easier to solve. I am calling on the Defense 
Authorization Conference Committee to solve a simple noncrisis problem, 
a problem, though, that casts shame on our treatment of our active-duty 
military, our veterans, and their families.
  Thanks to Chairman Buck McKeon and Ranking Member Adam Smith, the 
House passed Defense Authorization bill contains a simple provision. 
That provision says that when you raise the flags of the 50 States at 
military ceremonies, if you're raising or displaying the flags of the 
50 States, you must also display the flags of the District of Columbia 
and the five territories.
  The territories and the District have always served 
disproportionately in war, but what we are asking for today and what 
the House bill provides is the simple respect that anyone who wears the 
uniform and any family member of that active military person or veteran 
is entitled to.
  I thank the House for recognizing that in some matters all of us are 
certainly equal. We are all equal in according respect for members of 
our military. I've spoken with Senator Levin, the chair of the Defense 
Authorization Committee, and am convinced that he is for this 
provision. I have spoken to the White House at the highest levels, and 
I have asked all concerned to simply recede to the House provision.
  For reasons that escape us all, the Senate removed this provision 
when the House, last year, put it in the Defense Authorization bill. It 
would be impossible to remove this provision if the Members of the 
Senate, who are responsible for doing so, could have heard from our 
veterans who went to speak to the staff of Senator McCain and Senator 
Levin and told of their own experience. There was the colonel who said 
that when he was welcomed home from the Gulf War, the flag of every 
State was raised, but not the flag of the District of Columbia. There 
was the mother who wrote me, Tomi Rucker, to say that she and the 
father went to the graduation of her son from Navy boot camp Great 
Lakes Naval Station full of pride, and as each graduate's name was 
called, the home state flag was raised, but no flag for Jonathan Rucker 
of the District of Colombia when his name was called. The colonel's 
son, who came back three times from war, a combat veteran in Iraq, and 
each and every time the flag of the District of Columbia was not raised 
as the flags of others were.
  And my colleagues from the territories have come forward with equally 
heartbreaking stories. This, my colleagues of the House of 
Representatives, you can solve, you can solve this very day, and my 
colleagues in the other body need only follow your lead.
  The Defense Department some months ago issued a memorandum that said 
that raising the flags should be done at the discretion of the 
commander. Well, it wasn't at the commander's discretion that our young 
men and women volunteered to risk their lives for their country. And 
would such a memorandum have been put forward to say that the commander 
could decide whether to honor the flag of Virginia or Maryland, to take 
my closest neighbors, when their veterans came home? What is the 
difference between their veterans who have gone to war and the veterans 
of the District of Columbia?
  There are very few ways to honor our veterans. We honor foreign 
dignitaries by raising their flag. The least we can do is to honor our 
own military, our veterans and their families, by raising the flags of 
their home district or territory.

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