[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14463]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  REMEMBERING THE HONORABLE MEL LAIRD

  (Mr. DUFFY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. DUFFY. Mr. Speaker, today I rise with a heavy heart and offer 
condolences for the passing of former Secretary of Defense Mel Laird 
who served under Richard Nixon. Secretary Laird was well known, among 
many things, for the drawdown of troops in Vietnam and, to the delight 
of many, he suspended the military draft.
  But for us in Wisconsin, Mel Laird was our Congressman, a young man 
who was elected at 30 years old and served from 1953 to 1969 until he 
went to the Secretary of Defense position.
  When I was running for Congress in the late spring, my phone rang, 
and on the other end this guy says: Hello, Mel Laird here. Could I 
speak with Sean Duffy?
  Well, Mel Laird is larger than life in Wisconsin, a guy from 
Marshfield. I nearly dropped the phone to think that the great Mel 
Laird would give me a call. He knew everyone and every issue in 
Wisconsin at the ripe old age of 90.
  He passed away yesterday. With a heavy heart, we mourn his passing. I 
would just like to say, he was a man that President Ford said was the 
can-do conservative from Wisconsin. He was a patriot more than a 
partisan, so much so that he was the mentor of Colin Powell. And to the 
friends he had on both sides of the aisle, they would be tickled to 
know that Hillary Clinton once interned for him. In true Wisconsin 
fashion, when I won the seat that he had formerly held, he sent me a 
Wisconsin block of cheddar cheese.
  So, today, with a heavy heart, I want to extend my condolences to the 
family of Mel Laird, thank him and his family for his service, and may 
his soul rest in peace.

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