[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6824]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       HELP FIND OUR MISSING VETS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
South Carolina (Mr. Mulvaney) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MULVANEY. Mr. Speaker, yesterday in Hanoi, under a giant bronze 
statue of Ho Chi Minh, the President of the United States announced 
that he was formally rescinding our country's decades-long prohibition 
on the sale of military equipment to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
  Without input from Congress, in one grand, unilateral action, the 
President decided to reward Vietnam for its egregious record on human 
rights and its continuing crackdown on religious freedoms. But worse 
than that, he has surrendered a diplomatic opportunity to find out what 
happened to the 1,500 Americans still unaccounted for in Vietnam and 
Southeast Asia.
  It was unfortunate to see where this President's priorities lie, but 
there is still time to correct that wrong.
  Before he leaves Vietnam, I have a message to the President, a 
message from the Rolling Thunder vets, Chapter 1, of South Carolina. 
They asked me to ask him this: Instead of using this opportunity to 
reward Vietnam or to apologize for what he sees as past American 
wrongs, please, please, please, Mr. President, use this time instead to 
do something productive and positive and patriotic--help find our 
missing vets and help bring them home.

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