[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9159]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                AMERICAN SOLDIERS KILLED IN AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Jones) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, sadly, I come to the floor to remind the 
Members of the House, as well as the American people, that three 
Americans were killed last week in Afghanistan: Corporal Dillon 
Baldridge, Sergeant William Bays, Sergeant Eric Houck. They were killed 
by the Afghans they were training.
  Afghanistan is the biggest waste of life and money I have ever seen 
in my life. I have beside me two little girls who, at the time, lived 
in my district: Eden Baldridge and Stephanie Baldridge. Their daddy, 
Kevin, was sent from Camp Lejeune, which is in my district, along with 
Colonel Benjamin Palmer, who serves at Cherry Point, which is also in 
my district. They were sent to Afghanistan 3 years ago to train 
Afghanistans how to be policemen.
  Well, the tragedy of this story is that Corporal Baldridge emailed 
his wife, Amy, and said: ``Amy, I don't trust them. I don't trust any 
of them.'' And the very next day, he was shot, along with Colonel 
Palmer, and killed.
  Yet we in the Congress have never had a debate since 2001 on the 
future of America's involvement in Afghanistan. That is why John 
Garamendi and some on my side and his side--he is a Democrat--have put 
in a bill, H.R. 1668. All we are asking is that we have a debate. You 
can be for the bill that Mr. Garamendi and I have put in or you can be 
against it, but give us a chance to have a debate.
  In 16 years, we have spent over $850 billion, over 2,000 Americans 
have been killed and 20,000 severely wounded, yet it seems like the 
leadership in Congress does not understand that we have a 
constitutional responsibility, and that responsibility is to debate, 
especially when we are asking our young men and women to go overseas 
and give their life for this country.
  Yet again, we have not had a debate since 2001. There are 300 members 
of Congress sitting on the floor today from both parties who were not 
here in 2001 and who have never been part of a debate on Afghanistan. I 
don't know what else we can do. We have written the Speaker of the 
House individually, myself included, and as a group, Republican and 
Democrat, asking the Speaker to permit a new AUMF to get to the floor 
of the House to have that kind of debate on Afghanistan.
  Again, it is almost like it doesn't exist, but it does exist when we 
bring bills to the floor to continue to spend billions of dollars over 
there. And John Sopko, the inspector general for Afghan reconstruction, 
has testified that waste, fraud, and abuse is worse in Afghanistan 
today than it was 16 years ago.
  Mr. Speaker, again, I want to say to the families of the three 
servicemen who I read their names--I will one more time--Corporal 
Dillon Baldridge, Sergeant William Bays, Sergeant Erick Houck: God be 
with you. We in the House of Representatives, both parties, send to you 
our sincere condolences.
  I thank the good Lord that they were willing to give their life for 
this country. It is just a matter of why in the world do we continue to 
be in a country known as the empire of graveyards, since so many 
countries have been there and failed? And that is all we are doing, is 
failing, too, by wasting life and money.

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