[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9589-9596]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   SURVIVORS OF BUS ACCIDENT IN TANZANIA AIDED BY SIOUXLAND TANZANIA 
                     EDUCATIONAL MEDICAL MINISTRIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, it is my honor and privilege to be 
recognized to address you here on the floor of the United States House 
of Representatives, this great deliberative body that we have and are, 
and this deliberative body that brings this Nation together to discuss 
our troubles, to discuss our triumphs, and sometimes intensively debate 
our disagreements here on the floor and in committee. We have seen a 
fair amount of that disagreement around the country.
  There are a few things we see that brings this country together, and 
we join together in these efforts when we can be Americans, and reach 
out with the hand of the American heart and spirit and help others when 
they are in sometimes dire need and dire difficulty.
  Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor this afternoon to discuss one of 
these circumstances where Americans joined together and reached out 
their hands--not only of friendship but physically reached out their 
hands--to deliver the kind of medical care that saved three lives from 
a terrible accident that took place in Tanzania.
  This terrible accident in Tanzania was worldwide news. There were 39 
people on a bus in Tanzania, and all but three were students, children, 
12 to 13 years old. There were two teachers and a bus driver on the 
bus.
  From the reports that I got, the bus was going too fast. It went 
around a curve and reached the peak of a bump in the road, a rise in 
the road. The bus went airborne off the road into a ravine, and it 
crashed nose down in the same fashion that a plane might crash into the 
Earth.
  Of the 39 people on the bus, 36 of them children, there were only 
three survivors. These three survivors were in the back of the bus, and 
all others in the front were thrown to the front, where the engine and 
the front part of the bus, all the way back to behind the driver, was 
jammed into the fuselage, I might call it, of the bus itself. And as 
that was jammed backwards, they were all thrown into that.
  The three survivors were in the back, and the violence to them was 
cushioned, to a degree, by those who had perished in front of them. 
Everyone else was essentially instantly killed, and these three 
children by the name of Wilson and Sadia and Doreen were survivors. The 
bus was crushed together like a tin can.
  Three vehicles behind the bus were some missionary workers who are 
associated with STEMM, the Siouxland Tanzania Educational Medical 
Ministries, which was formed in Sioux City, Iowa, and it was formed by 
the inspiration of a long chain of, I will say, the Hand of Providence 
that arranges people together. They were there in Tanzania, following 
the bus three vehicles behind.
  Mr. Speaker, the situation there was that, as they saw the bus go off 
the road and crash, the bus crashed down off into the ravine; they 
stopped. The three of them were trained medical personnel named Kevin 
Nygard and Jennifer Milby and Amanda Volkers. I believe there are also 
a couple that I don't happen to have their names in front of me this 
evening, and I don't want to leave them out, Mr. Speaker, but they 
raced down the bank to the ravine where the bus had crashed nose down. 
They knew it was a terrible accident.
  I don't think they could have imagined how bad and how terrible it 
was, but the only way to get in that bus was through the windows in the 
sides, schoolbus-type windows, as we know. Most all of us are familiar 
with those, Mr. Speaker.
  So they climbed into that bus and began to look for survivors and to 
try to pull the survivors out and then the bodies of those who didn't 
survive, and they worked frantically there with other volunteers, also, 
who happened to come along to the scene.
  They were able to remove the three survivors that I had mentioned, 
Wilson and Sadia and Doreen, and lay them out on the bank. They were 
all medically trained, and so they were applying first aid.
  These three kids, these three students, 12 to 13 years old, two girls 
and a boy, were then transported by ambulance into the city in 
Tanzania.
  Now, I didn't know that this had happened, even though it was 
international news, but I was on an international trip as well into the 
Balkans. I happened to be in Bosnia at the moment in Sarajevo. I 
received a phone call from Dr. Steve Meyer. Steve Meyer is the founder 
of STEMM, the Siouxland Tanzania Educational Medical Ministries.

                              {time}  1700

  His heart has gone out to Tanzania nearly 20 years ago. He spends 
about half of each year there doing missionary work and providing and 
conducting orthopaedic surgery because he is an orthopaedic surgeon. He 
has taught them how to farm. He is drilling wells for irrigation. He 
also is running an educational system there that, at least the last 
report I had, it was the largest nonpublic school in Tanzania.
  This is all done by the drive and the inspiration and the heart of 
Dr. Steve Meyer and his wife, Dana. And so the people that work with 
him had contributed to the survival of the three students that they had 
helped pulled out of that bus.
  Yet I received a call from Steve Meyer. I was with the charge 
d'affaires in Sarajevo, Bosnia, and I stepped out of that reception to 
take a cell phone call. When I pick up my phone and it says, ``Steve 
Meyer,'' I know I better answer the call. He is a friend. He is a 
pheasant hunting buddy. I guess he is a neighbor in the neighborhood, 
not technically a constituent, but we are brothers by faith, by head, 
by heart, and I know the level of conviction that Steve Meyer has.
  So I took his call when I stepped out of the reception, and he said: 
``You have already seen this on the news. I need your help. There are 
three students that will . . .'' He said: ``One, probably two, of them 
will not survive if we cannot get them out of Tanzania. The third one 
likely will be handicapped for life, but is more likely to survive.''
  I know that he does orthopaedic surgery in Tanzania, and I said: 
``Can't you help them there? Can't you fix them there?''
  And he said: ``No, I can't. We don't have the equipment in Tanzania. 
We are not going to be able to save them unless we can get them out of 
Tanzania, get them back to Sioux City, where we can provide all the 
best medical care and perform the surgery necessary to put their bodies 
back together.''
  And that was his medical prognosis.
  Now, I know from previous times that I have been around Steve Meyer, 
the level of conviction that he has and, of course, the depth of his 
heart. So I said: ``I think I know what you need from me.''
  And he said: ``Yes, their parents need to go along, too; and we want 
to send along a doctor and a nurse. I have only got just a little bit 
of time, and I am going to have to leave Tanzania, but we need to get 
them out of here while they are still alive.''
  So my job was to accelerate the visas, acquisition of visas for the 
three patients, the kid patients, for each one of their mothers, and 
for the doctor and for the nurse that needed to accompany them back to 
the United States, and to promote and accelerate the issuance of 
passports, which nobody had that needed to travel here either, and that 
would be a function of the Tanzanian Government and a function of 
something that we might be able to encourage.
  So that was the easy part. It doesn't sound easy, Mr. Speaker, but it 
was the easy part compared to the second part of the assignment Dr. 
Meyer gave me. And he said: ``I need a medevac plane, and we are going 
to have to fly them out of Tanzania in a medevac plane. I have got 
everything set up in Sioux City. It is at Mercy Hospital. All of us

[[Page 9590]]

are going to donate our time, our medical care, the devices that will 
be used to do the reconstructive surgery. All of that is going to be 
provided. It is going to be at no cost, but we need to get them there 
and get them there fast.''
  So this is a high emergency. I hung up the phone and I began to make 
phone calls. And the fortunate thing was I was leaving Bosnia shortly 
to go to Macedonia. Well, I would employ the staff at the Bosnian 
Embassy--the U.S. Embassy in Bosnia to pull some phone numbers together 
for me and start the outreach on this and to accelerate the effort to 
get the visas, promote the passports, and get the medevac plane. I want 
to thank the people there at the U.S. Embassy in Bosnia for their work 
and their cooperation.
  I shortly arrived in Macedonia, where now I had a whole new embassy 
team to put to work; and they did. They pulled together phone numbers 
and made connections for me, too. I spoke--I believe it was from 
Macedonia--to the Tanzanian Embassy--the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania.
  I want to thank Anthony Pagliai. Anthony Pagliai is the officer who 
issued the visas, and he was Johnny-on-the-spot. He couldn't have moved 
any more quickly or with any more conviction once I convinced him that 
this was for real.
  And it was interesting how that happened, Mr. Speaker, that the--you 
know, when a congressman calls a staff person in an embassy in 
Tanzania, he doesn't have any way of knowing that it actually is a 
Member of Congress, for one thing, and what is the level of urgency and 
credibility of that call. But I told him I can vouch for Dr. Steve 
Meyer and I have known him for a long time, I know the level of his 
credibility and his conviction, his heart. I have spoken to that, Mr. 
Speaker.
  I relayed that to Anthony Pagliai, and it seemed that the message 
wasn't clearly resonating because he didn't know of Dr. Steve Meyer. So 
I said to him that Steve Meyer is also working with Lazaro Nyalandu. 
Lazaro Nyalandu is an individual who ran for Prime Minister in Tanzania 
in the last election cycle--didn't win, but a fairly high name 
recognition within Tanzania. And when I gave Lazaro's name--you heard 
me hesitate already, Mr. Speaker. I have always had trouble remembering 
his name, but it is Nyalandu. And I hesitated on his name, but I said: 
``Lazaro, the Prime Minister candidate in Tanzania, is working with Dr. 
Meyer, and I can vouch for Dr. Meyer. I know Lazaro, and I know, if the 
two of them are working together, this is a credible endeavor, and you 
should help them in any way that you can.''
  And he finished up and he gave me Lazaro's last name. He volunteered 
it: Nyalandu. He said: ``We know him. He was the only candidate for 
Prime Minister that actually answered our phone calls.''
  So I knew that he had a good relationship with the U.S. Embassy and 
that they had all of the incentive to move forward to expedite the 
visas. And I asked Anthony: ``Find me also a medevac plane.''
  Well, that was a very big request for somebody that is in the 
business of issuing visas for travel. And he said he would go to work 
on that, but I knew it was very difficult.
  So with the confidence that the visas would be moved expeditiously 
and that the encouragement to deliver the passports would be supported 
out of the U.S. Embassy, I moved on to begin looking for a medevac 
plane while the course of his lifesaving techniques were going on in 
the hospital in Tanzania, trying to save the lives of these three badly 
broken bodies.
  Mr. Speaker, as I move then from Macedonia to Albania, I have been 
continually making phone calls trying to find a medevac plane. I talked 
to the White House. I talked to the West Wing of the White House, and 
in particular, communicated with Steve Bannon and others who then did 
the outreach to the Department of Defense and went so far as to check 
with Stuttgart, where they command AFRICOMs out of Stuttgart, Germany. 
The assets to do this didn't really exist in an available way.
  I reached even further into a security company that I worked with as 
head of my security in the Middle East, in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and 
they found a plane. This plane was sitting on the tarmac in the Middle 
East. It could have gone down. It was set up well enough to be a 
medevac plane, but the price, because it was a leased plane, was 
$300,000.
  So I told them: ``I don't think I want to spend that amount of money 
out of my kids' inheritance. I am not sure we could raise it to replace 
it, but put that plane on hold because I want to make some more phone 
calls and see if there is a better alternative.''
  I kept making phone calls, and at about 4 o'clock in that afternoon, 
in a little back street in Albania, I had a phone call connection with 
Reverend Franklin Graham.
  And I want to give credit in the Congressional Record to Elizabeth 
Soderholm, who was a staff person out of our U.S. Embassy in Albania, 
who made sure that that phone call made connection as the cell signals 
were bad and the batteries were going down, nearly down on my phone. We 
made the connection with hers, so I dialed, and I got an answer from 
Reverend Franklin Graham.
  And over the course of less than a 5-minute conversation altogether, 
over the course of about 3 minutes, I explained the situation to him. 
And Reverend Franklin Graham of Samaritan's Purse said: ``I have a DC-8 
that I can fly and move them out of Tanzania to Sioux City, Iowa. I am 
willing to do that. I want to help.''
  And I said: ``Reverend Graham, I don't know that I can raise the 
money for that.''
  And he said: ``You don't have to. We will take care of it.''
  And at that moment I knew that we had the problem solved and we had a 
reasonable chance to save these three kids.
  So, of course, I thanked him effusively. I texted Dr. Meyer's number 
to Franklin Graham, and Franklin Graham's number to Dr. Meyer. I said 
to each one of them: ``Call each other right away so that you can make 
this connection and get this plane set up and dispatched to evacuate 
these three patients out of Tanzania.''
  And Dr. Meyer had no idea this was going on. He was 30 minutes from 
boarding his commercial flight out of Tanzania to come back to Iowa. 
Because of the obligations he had, he could not have stayed. And the 
phone rang, he answered it, and it was on the other end: ``This is 
Franklin Graham, and I want to help.''
  And that is when Steve Meyer knew that the problems, the difficulties 
were going to be resolved. In any case, at that point they set up the 
logistics. The plane arrived in Tanzania, boarded these patients out of 
there, and flew them back to the United States--not without incident, 
but back to the United States.
  Again, I am very grateful for all the people involved here. And I 
want to let this Congressional Record know, Mr. Speaker, that the 
driving force behind this was Dr. Steve Meyer. And it has been his 
heart to help the people of Tanzania for two decades, and anybody that 
has been around him like I have been, my pheasant hunting buddy, and 
the times that Marilyn and I have been involved in the fundraising 
efforts that go on with STEMM and Sioux City, you just know. You want 
to make sure that he is going to get it done. So why not make it as 
easy as possible on him and knowing that, when that calling comes from 
above, you answer that call?
  So I wanted to point out some things here on the posters. This is how 
this came together. These pictures were taken, I believe, 2\1/2\ weeks 
ago, maybe 3\1/2\ weeks ago, but the accident took place May 6. So 
within a couple of weeks of the accident, they had finished the surgery 
of our three victims here.
  Mr. Speaker, I will say, among these three, there were five broken 
arms and at least, I believe, three broken legs. There were two 
fractured spines. There were 17 broken bones altogether. There was a 
broken jaw over here in Doreen. And this is a fractured spine in her 
neck. And this is Sadia. And Wilson had a fractured femur.

[[Page 9591]]

  And when you add this all up, it would have been--I guess I better 
not necessarily point out which one, but both of these girls were at 
great risk of death in Tanzania and likely would not have made it. 
Wilson here in the middle likely would have survived, but he had a 
fractured femur where, in Tanzania, would have required that they 
amputate his leg at the hip.
  And now, as of a week ago Saturday, I went up to the Sioux City 
Bandits' football game--indoor football--and they were co-captains for 
the team, for the playoff game that took place that Saturday night. 
They wheeled all three of them out to the middle of the field for the 
coin toss. And after that, they came back, and we had a little stage on 
the end where we watched the game from the stage.
  And they look a little fresher and more alert that night than they do 
in these pictures, Mr. Speaker, but they are now happy. Their parents 
are delighted and very grateful.
  This is Dr. Steve Meyer here in the picture, and I just can't say 
enough about a man who inspires everyone around him and makes things 
happen by force of will and faith that would not and, we would think, 
could not happen otherwise.
  And then of the patients here, Wilson is the one that cracks me up 
the most. On that Saturday night, this young fellow who would have, by 
now, lost his leg up at the hip, I leaned down and I said to him: 
``Wilson, is what I heard about you yesterday true?''
  And he looked at me and smiled a little bit, and said: ``Well, 
what?''
  And I said: ``Did you really kick a ball yesterday? Did you stand up 
and kick a ball?''
  And he got this grin on his face and said: ``Yes.''
  So that is how far this has come. This is a happy result, Mr. 
Speaker, and I wanted to also show the picture. Here is Wilson and his 
mother. I will give you an example. He has got this ready smile. He is 
not the only one of the crew with a ready smile, but he has got a great 
ready smile. And part of it is he had got a big wound in his head that 
you don't see in the picture, too, but it doesn't suppress the grin on 
his face.
  And we did a little press conference there. It was the first time he 
had been out of a hospital room. The only thing he had seen in America 
was the inside of a hospital room, and then wheeled down the hallway to 
the reception area of the hospital. And he is there with the two girls 
in their wheelchairs. That was also taken the same day.

                              {time}  1715

  And the press asked him: ``What is it you like best about America?''
  Well, the only thing he had seen of America was the inside of the 
hospital, and he smiled and he said: ``Everything.''
  And they asked him: ``What is your favorite food here?'' And he said: 
``Everything.''
  And they asked him only one more question: ``Is there anything else 
you would like to say, Wilson?'' And he said: ``Thank you.''
  And that is something that the parents have been saying ever since, 
the three mothers that are here and the doctor and the nurse that are 
here also to take care of them.
  They are now out of the hospital. They are at Ronald McDonald House 
there in Sioux City. They have been taking them out on occasion to get 
some fresh air and see what normal life is in our part of the country. 
And you can just see the heart, and Steve Meyer here in this poster.
  I would be remiss if I didn't have this poster up also tonight, Mr. 
Speaker. This is Samaritan's Purse. This is the DC-8 that Reverend 
Franklin Graham dispatched to fly our three patients out of Tanzania 
and into Sioux City, Iowa.
  These are the people that have gathered at the departure wondering if 
they are ever going to see these three Tanzanian kids again. Many of 
these people would be people that were at the state funeral for the 36 
who were killed in that bus accident. Tens of thousands came to the 
stadium as those 36 caskets were all lined up side by side, and the 
nation went into mourning in Tanzania because of that terrible loss 
that they had and the tragedy that was there, that was commemorated by 
the attendance of tens of thousands. Probably over 100,000 Tanzanians 
came to their soccer stadium for that huge funeral that they had. And 
now some of them come to the airstrip to see these three survivors, 
these miracle kids from Tanzania be flown off to the United States.
  I can only imagine what it is like in their mind's eye, what they 
imagine is happening with their three children that have been flown 
over here to the United States.
  And the father of one of these patients said to Dr. Meyer: ``Why? 
Why? Why?'' And Dr. Meyer said: ``Well, what do you mean `why?'''
  ``Why do you do this? Why are you willing to do this for our 
children?''
  And his answer is: ``We are Christians and we are Americans. That's 
why.''
  And so it is the head and the heart of our country, our people. It 
does come to us to reach out and lift others up and help them. We can't 
help them all. We can't save them all. But every once in a while, there 
is a cry out and a need for a chain of individual miracles linked 
together.
  Without a connection, by the way, between Steve Meyer and Lazaro, who 
met years ago when Lazaro was going to college in Iowa, Lazaro 
Nyalandu--as he went to college in Iowa, he was brought together by 
Steve Meyer's pastor and then Steve Meyer, and they got to know each 
other and they became friends. And because of that relationship, Steve 
Meyer went to Tanzania and became one of the lead people on mission to 
Tanzania. If it hadn't been for that, he never would have formed STEMM.
  The Siouxland Tanzania Educational Medical Ministry would have never 
been formed had it not been for that connection more than 20 years ago. 
And if it had never been formed, the workers wouldn't have been behind 
the bus when it went off the road, and, likely, everybody would have 
perished in that bus rather than all but three. If they hadn't been 
behind the bus, we would have not heard about the injuries that they 
had and wouldn't have had the connection to fly them back to the United 
States.
  I don't know Lazaro myself. I don't have that to use to convince 
Anthony Pagiliai that this is a credible act. Now, he might have done 
it anyway. His head and his heart sounds good to me, too, but it helped 
to have that series of networks already built.
  I bring this up, Mr. Speaker, because I want people to know, the 
people that are listening here, and especially young people as they 
form and shape their lives, that networking is worth a lot. You can be 
the smartest person in the world with the best intentions in the world, 
but if you don't have relationships with people so that you can 
communicate, that you can share ideas, that you can connect and team up 
on projects, then you can't get a lot done.
  The smartest person in the world in a phone book hasn't had much 
effect on our society. But people with good convictions and good 
relationships and positive attitudes and a good heart can get a lot 
done that is good if they are connected with the right people.
  So I just encourage, especially, young people: Go out there and build 
those networks. Build them while you are young. Build them while you 
are in school, when you are in K-12, when you are in college, when you 
are after college, when you are building those networks of young people 
that are going into the profession together. And understand that 40 
years later you are still going to have friends that you can call on to 
produce a good and positive result if you build those relationships and 
those networks, not be reclusive. Push yourself out there and build 
friendships with people. And that multiplied itself over and over 
again.
  By the way, I am grateful that Franklin Graham took my call and I 
carried enough credibility that that actually worked that way, too. 
That is another piece of networking. But I can't thank Revered Franklin 
Graham enough.
  I remember sitting in my living room watching a black-and-white TV 
while Billy Graham was preaching and calling for an altar call, and 
that is a little

[[Page 9592]]

bit of how we grew up in our family, clear back then when TVs were 
black-and-white.
  And now, his son, Reverend Franklin Graham, took a phone call from me 
from Albania that resulted in a DC-8 being dispatched to fly these 
three patients out of Tanzania to Sioux City, Iowa, where they received 
surgery that repaired 17 broken bones and, by the way, with all of the 
medical devices donated by the company that produced them as well.
  When I look at this, Doreen was paralyzed, particularly in her right 
leg, and there was no confidence as to whether she would ever be able 
to have any feeling in that leg or ever be able to walk again. Today 
she has feeling in that leg. She has some movement in that leg, and my 
level of confidence that she will walk again is pretty high right now. 
All the other prayers have been answered; why not this one?
  I think the day comes when these three arrive back in Tanzania, and I 
will predict the date. I think it will be the 18th or 19th of August 
that they will be flown back to Tanzania, and I believe that these 
three patients, with their mothers with them, will walk down the steps 
off that plane onto the soil of Tanzania; and I believe that there will 
be tens of thousands of Tanzanians there to welcome them back home 
again.
  The completion of this series of miracles that came about because one 
person, Steve Meyer, had the right head and heart at all times, and he 
had the right networks, with people like Lazaro Nyalandu and people 
working in our U.S. Embassies like Anthony Pagiliai and Elizabeth 
Soderholm, who set up that call, and our Ambassadors within each of 
those places that promoted and allowed this to happen, including 
Ambassador Lu and also Ambassador Baily, whom I worked with.
  I got the good news when I was in Kosovo that it was going to be, it 
was likely to be completed then, that they had reached that 
transaction. I called it a transaction. They had put together the 
logistics so that the plane was going to go and pick them up.
  I found myself then at the Vatican shortly after that, and kind of as 
maybe a little extra frosting on the cake, I was offered the 
opportunity to do the Bible reading at St. Peter's Basilica at the 
Vatican that Sunday. I don't know how that came to me unless it was 
just a little reward from God that said, ``Well done, well done,'' by a 
lot of people.
  These young people are now reconstructed. Their reconstructive 
surgery is completed, and they are on the mend. Two of the three are 
standing and walking and getting stronger, and each of them are taking 
physical therapy, and their attitudes are good. Their pain levels are 
down, and the projection is that, by mid to late August, they will be 
ready to go back to Tanzania.
  That is an American success story, Mr. Speaker, and it is one that I 
am happy to relay here on the floor of the House of Representatives and 
deliver the credit to so many people who did so much to make this work, 
particularly Dr. Steve Meyer, but all of that for three kids in 
Tanzania for whom it is a miracle that they survived the bus accident.
  Now, for their futures, the three miracle kids of Tanzania have a 
legacy to live up to. I expect that in years going forward, 10 and 20 
and 30 and 40 years from now, wherever they go in the world, especially 
in Tanzania, they will be known as the Tanzanian miracle kids, the ones 
who survived against such improbable odds.
  Out of them should come the kind of ambassadorship that links 
together Tanzania and the United States, and who knows what gets built 
that helps them help themselves; who knows how much of their own 
agriculture will be expanded so they can raise their own food; who 
knows how much of their educational system will be built out because of 
the inspiration that can come from young people whose lives have been 
saved by the technology and education that we have here; who knows how 
much of their spirit of faith is going to be bolstered by the good 
hearts of people that only wanted to do something good, only wanted to 
reach out their hand and help.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I am very happy and grateful that this story is on 
its way to a very happy conclusion, and I can't say enough about the 
children, about the mothers who expressed their gratitude at the game.
  One of the mothers continued to always offer some little chicken 
strips for my granddaughter, my 10-year-old granddaughter, Rachel, to 
eat. Rachel couldn't quite understand why she was supposed to be eating 
all the time. And whenever Rachel would take a bite of it, then she 
would hear: ``You like? You like?''
  And I said: ``Well, Rachel, it is because there are only a few words 
in English that this girl's mother knows, and she wants to open up a 
conversation with you, and so she's offering you food. That is a way of 
her expressing gratitude, not only to us, but to our country, and a way 
of having a conversation and communicating.'' And so it was a good 
experience for Rachel, too.
  But I can't say enough about Reverend Franklin Graham, Samaritan's 
Purse, this effort that is global, that didn't hesitate. Again, it was 
not a 5-minute conversation between me and Reverend Franklin Graham 
that was able to set up this transportation; and the conversation with 
Franklin Graham and Dr. Steve Meyer, not very technical. It is: ``Where 
are they?'' ``What do we need to do?'' ``How are we going to figure out 
how to get there?'' ``Can we set the plane up to be a medevac plane?'' 
He had expressed that also in the phone call with me.
  So, Mr. Speaker, this is a story that is on the way to a very, very 
happy conclusion, and I hope sometime, maybe in September, I can come 
back to the floor and report on the return of the Tanzanian miracle 
kids to Tanzania and, hopefully, I will have some pictures then of the 
crowd that is bound to be gathered together in a great celebratory 
event to counteract, or to be juxtaposed against the terrible, terrible 
tragedy of that bus accident that killed 36. It was 33 students and 2 
of the teachers and the bus driver. Only these three children survived, 
and they survived because they were at the back of the bus when the bus 
landed on its nose.
  So 17 broken bones, 2 broken spines, 5 or 6 fractured arms, and 3 or 
4 of the legs were fractured in one bone or another.
  Also, I should say that Dr. Quentin Durward was the neurosurgeon who 
did a lot of that technical work on the spines along with Dr. Steve 
Meyer, and he is one, also, who I know that his head and heart are in 
the right place.
  I know that I have left off many, many of the medical providers at 
Mercy Hospital in Sioux City who donated their time and are so 
dedicated to this. I regret that I didn't have a list to read into the 
Record, Mr. Speaker. But I also want to express my gratitude to those 
whom I left off the list.
  With that, I believe that I should conclude my presentation here on 
the Tanzanian miracle kids and, again, thank all of those who are 
involved and transition my discussion over to a few other things that 
are part of the current concerns here in America.


                           Issues of the Day

  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I want to transition over to the 
shooting last Wednesday at the practice ballfield in Alexandria.
  I want to thank everyone across this country who offered their 
prayers for the recovery of all of those who were injured in this 
shooting and especially our whip, our majority whip, Steve Scalise.
  His nickname for me and mine for him for years has been ``Scrapper.'' 
We just call each other ``Scrapper.''
  Well, we know, Steve Scalise is a scrapper. He is a fighter. He took 
an awfully hard hit last Wednesday, and it did significant damage to 
him. All of the medical reports that we have been getting after the 
first 36 hours or so have been of improvement in his condition.

                              {time}  1730

  I don't suppose--and I say this for Steve's benefit--I don't suppose 
LSU's loss in the College World Series the

[[Page 9593]]

other night by a score of 13-to-1 improved his condition that much, but 
he is a baseball player and a baseball fan, and he is a very dedicated 
LSU fan. They are still in the College World Series, as I understand 
it, and it is a double-elimination tournament. So they are the leaders 
in the loser's bracket, so to speak. So they have got a chance to 
battle back and still win.
  But he is battling back, and he is a winner, and his strength is 
coming back. The day will come when he comes to this floor to cast a 
vote. I don't know how long that is going to be, Mr. Speaker, but I can 
only anticipate the cheers of joy that this House of Representatives 
will utter when the day comes that Steve Scalise comes back to this 
floor to vote, to count votes.
  He is the vote counter for the majority in this House of 
Representatives. That is one of the most important jobs in this place. 
If you bring a bill to the floor and you can't produce the votes to get 
it to pass, it is a pretty heavy embarrassment, and Steve Scalise has 
gotten that art down pretty well.
  I always want to make that job as easy for him as I can, provided I 
agree with him on the policy, of course. But Steve Scalise, whether you 
agree with him on the policy or whether you don't, he has the personal 
support and the prayers of a vast majority of the Members here on this 
floor, and across this country.
  He is an individual who you have got to like him, you have got to 
like him personally. He is engaging. He is sociable. He makes sure that 
there is a meal back there for us on first votes of the week, and he is 
the host in the Lincoln room in front of the Lincoln fireplace where 
Lincoln used to sit back in the day as well.
  His two kids and his wife are also certainly near him whenever they 
can be and by his bedside whenever they can be. It is a time when the 
family is going through a fair amount of grief and stress, too.
  But Steve Scalise isn't the only story in this, and that would be 
that Matt Mika, the lobbyist for Tyson Foods, was the second-most 
seriously injured in the shootings last Wednesday. And without 
describing his wounds here in the Record, I just want to make sure the 
Record knows, Mr. Speaker, that it was a very serious wound that Matt 
Mika took, and his recovery looks positive at this point. It is also 
one of those things that, day by day, gets a little better.
  But each one of these individuals, Steve Scalise and Matt Mika, had 
it been a different scenario, if it had been a more remote location, 
without an almost immediate medevac by helicopter out of there and to 
the hospital, I am going to say that if they had been in a remote 
location, we likely would have lost them both.
  It is attempted murder by a fellow that we don't need to bring 
charges against now because he has gone to the morgue. And his death is 
as a result of the two officers who were there providing the security 
for Steve Scalise: Crystal Griner, I believe her name was, and also 
David Bailey.
  One of the most uplifting things that I have seen was at the 
Congressional Baseball Game last Thursday night at the Nationals Park, 
when I saw Joe Torre come out to the mound, and I thought he was going 
to throw out the first pitch, and then they introduced--it was either 
Roberto Clemente's son or grandson, he was also at the mound--but then 
this fellow came out on crutches that had one leg up off the ground. 
And as he went out there, I realized who it was: David Bailey; the man 
who had actually taken the shooter out just the day before and took a 
wound himself in the leg came to the ball game on crutches and went out 
to the mound. He handed over one of those crutches, leaned on the other 
one, and threw out the first pitch.
  It was a tremendous moment. It was the best moment of the evening, 
Mr. Speaker. It was the equivalent of Neil Diamond going back to the 
Red Sox stadium after the Boston bombing and singing ``Sweet Caroline'' 
at the seventh-inning stretch.
  Those things, when we see that, have got a lot more meaning than just 
throwing a ball into home plate or singing a song at the seventh-inning 
stretch. It is something that uplifts and motivates all of us and 
should unify all of us together.
  This ghastly attempted killing that took place by Hodgkinson was 
something that--we don't doubt that some of it was ginned up by the 
hatred and the vitriol that is part of the vernacular and part of the 
public arena today in politics. More examination of his Facebook page 
and his other communications and people who were around him will go on 
as we try to understand what motivated this man, but there is no 
question it was political.
  I believe that he was radicalized by the political dialogue that has 
been taking place in this country. And that radicalization took place 
in a way, in his mind, that we won't understand. I remember Speaker 
Pelosi saying that everybody is not as stable as we are, and that words 
weigh a ton on people who aren't stable, and sometimes they are 
motivated into violence.
  That doesn't mean we can prevent the violence by preventing the 
dialogue, but it does mean that when we clash, we should clash on 
policy. We should disagree on policy and the best method to bring this 
policy forward, but it should not be personal. We should not be 
demonizing the other side.
  There is going to be a disagreement in ideology. Our Founding Fathers 
understood that. They set up this competition here in this Congress to 
drain the stress off of the streets of America. And one of the results 
here is that we come to this place, on the floor of this House, and 
when we disagree, we don't challenge the motive of the person we 
disagree with. We challenge the ideas, and we try to present better 
ideas. And the best ideas are to prevail in the mind of the public.
  That is how it was designed to be. That is why every 2 years we have 
an election here, and why there are no appointments to the House of 
Representatives. Everybody that has a vote card in this place, all 435 
of us, that is a vote card earned in an election; not one that has been 
handed by a Governor's appointment, for example, which is the case in 
the Senate, from time to time, when there is a vacancy.
  But we are elected every 2 years, and our Founding Fathers looked at 
this and said: We are going to be the hot cup of coffee--or hot cup of 
tea, perhaps, is what they were referencing at the time--so we could 
react quickly to the will of the people.
  But the saucer that it cools in is the Senate--6-year elections 
instead of 2--so that the hot ideas that come here to the House of 
Representatives can be tempered in the cooling saucer of the 6-year 
terms in the Senate.
  But it was about bringing ideas here, bringing them here quickly with 
the elections every 2 years for every one of us, every 2 years, and 
then those fresh ideas then wash across over to the Senate, and the 
Senate is designed to step back and take a look, and a deep breath, and 
then, with the judgment of both bodies, come together and conference 
committee, and conference report, and send those results to the 
President of the United States--elected every 4 years--who is, of 
course, the Commander in Chief, commands our military, has a full 
authority to do all kinds of things, Mr. Speaker.
  But the point I want to make is this: During the ObamaCare debate in 
2010, in that March period of time, when this Capitol was surrounded by 
the American people, and encircled, and they were six to eight people 
deep in a human doughnut around the Capitol--not just a human chain 
where you touched people and reached out as far as you could--six or 
eight deep, packed together all the way around the Capitol.
  By the way, there are no pictures of that human doughnut around the 
Capitol, because there was no airspace allowed for anything to fly up 
there and take pictures of us standing around in that fashion. But 
during that period of time, I had walked from the Judiciary Committee 
over here to the House of Representatives. And on the way, I came by a 
lady who I had seen in the gallery of the Judiciary Committee quite a 
number of times, and I had

[[Page 9594]]

never talked to her. But as I walked by her, I felt compelled to speak 
to her, Mr. Speaker.
  And as I did, she said: You have got to stop arguing. You have got to 
stop debating. You have got to get to a compromise. You have got to get 
to a compromise and move on. We can't have these arguments in our 
country. We can't have this kind of stress, this kind of pressure.
  And I hadn't answered a question of anybody the same as I did that 
day. I answered her differently, Mr. Speaker. And it just kind of 
clicked in my mind, and I said to her: Did you ever think that because 
we come to this city together, and we debate our disagreements here in 
open debate, and we air out our beliefs and our convictions, and we 
weigh our options, and we bring new ideas in, and we churn those ideas, 
did you ever think that because we do that this way in America, that it 
keeps us from being at each other's throats and fighting each other in 
the streets of America?
  And I know that was how it was designed to be, to drain off that hot-
bloodedness that comes through debate, and by public--not only by 
debate but by legitimate elections that reflect the voices and the will 
of the people. It is the biggest thing that keeps us from having 
revolutions in America. We have them. We have them every 2 years when 
we have an election. They are, in a way, a revolution.
  New ideas come here. We weigh those ideas. We cast our votes. We 
change the policy. We adjust to the will of the American people, and 
that keeps us from having revolutions in the street of America.
  But how long will that last, Mr. Speaker? How long can that last in a 
country where we had a legitimate election last November 8, and there 
is that ever-growing group of people who seem to be denying the very 
results of our legitimate election?
  The constitutionally elected President of the United States is Donald 
J. Trump, and it is not an arguable or refutable point. You can say 
that Hillary Clinton won more popular vote than Donald Trump. Well, 
that is like saying, the Packers beat the Bears, but the Bears ran up 
more yards than the Packers, so they don't have a legitimate win. They 
are not playing by the rules on the football field of who runs up the 
most total yards. It is who has the most points on the scoreboard.
  You can run the ball up and down the field, but if you can't get 
across the goal line, or kick it through the uprights, or if you can't 
score a safety, you don't score. And if you don't score and the other 
team does, you lose. If they score more than you do, you still lose. 
And that is how this constitutional election takes place, Mr. Speaker, 
is by the rules; the rules that are written into our Constitution and 
have been barely altered over more than 200 years because they were so 
wisely put in place.
  The electoral college decides the President of the United States, and 
the ballots are cast here on the floor of the House of Representatives, 
and that is the official tally that rings up who is the President of 
the United States.
  There is no part of this process that is legitimately refuted by the 
other side. Yet, they say, we are the resistance. And the loser in the 
last Presidential election wants to be the leader of the resistance--
the leader of the resistance, and one who has looked for a lot of 
reasons why she is not the President of the United States.
  And I would quote Chuck Grassley on how you define that. In one of 
his elections years ago--this is a back-channel story about him, but he 
is a person I admire and have a great affection for, a senior Senator 
from Iowa, now the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee--they 
continually asked him when he was first elected to the Federal office 
here: ``Why did you win? Why did you win?''
  And he didn't want to say anything anymore. He was just happy enough 
with the victory. And finally, as he walked away from the press, they 
said: ``But, Mr. Grassley, why did you win?''
  And he turned, and he said: ``I got more votes than the other guy.'' 
And he walked away.
  Well, that is a pretty good point, Chuck Grassley. And in this case, 
Donald Trump got more electoral votes than his opponent. That is why he 
won. But he earned those legitimately by elections within the States 
that converted those electoral votes to his side. That is how it is 
supposed to be.
  And to deny that then subverts the constitutional results of an 
elected President. It subverts the mandate that comes with the election 
of a President. It diminishes the credibility of our constitutionally 
structured government that is there, and it bogs down our process.
  So when I see demonstrations in the streets, Mr. Speaker, that say 
``the resistance'' in the front, and then there is another big banner 
up there that says, ``be ungovernable,'' we don't want to be an 
ungovernable people, Mr. Speaker. We want to be a governable people. 
And when we elect a President, and when we elect Senators and House 
Members, and our offices in the States for our State representatives 
and our State senators, when we elect our Governors, when we elect our 
other constitutional officers who are there, we need to respect the 
results of that, and give them their respect, and let them do their 
jobs.
  I especially want to encourage them, keep your campaign promises. 
Follow through on those campaign promises. But when we have masses of 
people in the streets who go out to demonstrate against the results of 
a legitimate election, we start to look like the Third World.
  Can't we have, on both sides of the aisle--can't we have Republicans 
over here and Democrats over here, and leftists over on the extreme 
there, and some Conservatives over here--that I think are as 
constitutional as myself--can't we have them respect the system enough 
to respect the duly elected Representatives who are there, including, 
and especially, the President of the United States so that there are 
not demonstrations in the streets?
  In this city the next day, Mr. Speaker, 600,000 to 700,000 people 
swarmed the streets of this city in equal or greater numbers than those 
who came to witness the inauguration, to protest against the 
inauguration against the newly inaugurated President Trump.

                              {time}  1745

  Six to 700,000, the majority of them, were women wearing these 
knitted pink hats, carrying around some of the most vulgar signs I have 
seen anywhere--in fact, the most vulgar signs I have seen anywhere--
protesting against the inauguration of the President of the United 
States.
  Why?
  I talked to a lot of them--more of them than it was probably wise, 
Mr. Speaker--but I did take them down to this: that you are obstructing 
and subverting the constitutional results of this election, and if you 
want to live in a free country, if you want to live in a constitutional 
Republic, and if you want to be able to receive and earn the benefits 
of the free enterprise system that we have, the rule of law that we 
have, the constitutional government that we have, this American spirit 
that is a can-do spirit that brings the vigor of the planet here to 
America and that employs their industriousness, grows our GDP, and 
contributes to the living standard in America, if you want all that to 
happen, then you can't be obstructing the results of elections because 
we will end up in the Third World.
  If you destroy the rule of law in America by protesting in the 
streets and being ungovernable and if you are an ungovernable people, 
then we are not going to be a constitutional Republic forever.
  Remember what Ben Franklin said when they came out of the 
Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and a woman asked him: What 
have you given us?
  His answer was: A Republic, Madam, if you can keep it.
  Well, we have kept it for a long time, and we need to continue to 
keep it.
  Ronald Reagan told us that freedom doesn't last more than a 
generation. It has to be fought for and it has to be defended.
  We have fought for it and we have defended it. We also now have to 
defend it

[[Page 9595]]

in the minds and in the hearts of the American people. If we fail to 
teach our young people the value of this constitutional Republic, if we 
fail to teach them the continuation of the history of this great Nation 
that we are blessed to be part of, then eventually they will build a 
disrespect. They are already building it in many of the colleges and 
universities across the land. That disrespect turns into contempt, and 
that contempt turns into, sometimes, violence in the streets that shuts 
down freedom of speech in America.
  Charles Murray got drummed off the stage, and he couldn't give a 
speech because they disagreed with what they think he is going to say. 
That happens also to others along the way who aren't able to deliver 
the speeches they want to deliver.
  Brigitte Gabriel is a proud Americanized citizen who lived in a 
bunker in Lebanon while they were trying to kill her because she is a 
Christian. She had been bombed multiple times and she was wounded in 
that process. As a little girl, she watched television on battery-
operated black-and-white TV. She saw ``Bonanza'' and ``Dallas'' and 
some of the other programs that showed about the quality and the 
character of American life. She understood that we are a people. And 
she said this just last Wednesday morning, right after we learned of 
the shooting: that she learned as a little girl, 8 to 10 years old, 
watching television that Americans are people that can disagree without 
having that break down into violence or without hurling accusations and 
insults at the person we disagree with, that we are a people that have 
a quality of our character that we can disagree with each other and do 
so and still be friends and respect the opinions of the other.
  That is one of those things that keep this Republic going and keeps 
it successful. But I am watching it digress. I am watching as people 
more often hurl insults and throw a tantrum instead of listening to a 
position and then issuing the counterpoints. In fact, that happened 
today in the Judiciary Committee. I will let others look that up for 
now, Mr. Speaker, but when our emotions rule our intellect, then we 
start to devolve towards Third World. When our intellect controls our 
emotions, then the age of reason can continue to improve and achieve.
  We are a country that has a foundation of blessings in it. Some of 
that foundation is the foundation of Western civilization itself. The 
dominant component of Western civilization is the United States of 
America. If we let the rest of the world be subsumed by other sets of 
values that don't respect the success of Western civilization, then 
eventually the part that we are able to hold together here will be less 
because we will have fewer allies around the world. Eventually we will 
be surrounded by other ideologies that will want to consume or supplant 
us here in America.
  So I want our children to know, Mr. Speaker, that this gift that is 
America is rooted in the pillars of American exceptionalism whose roots 
are in Western civilization and our rule of law. It is so essential 
that we restore that rule of law here in America.
  You can trace the rule of law back to old England. One of the places 
that you can see that is just go down the road to Jamestown here in 
Virginia. Go there and look at the site where the Jamestown settlers 
landed. There, one of the first buildings they built was a church. But 
even before that, Mr. Speaker, they planted a cross there on the shores 
of the Atlantic Ocean where you can look across to the east to the old 
country, to England. There, they knelt and offered a prayer.
  I think it would take me a little too long to call that up on my 
iPhone. I don't have it committed to memory. But they understood the 
destiny. They understood the gift of America. They understood the 
destiny to spread our freedom--freedom of religion--but spread also 
would be evangelism for the world. That prayer is so profound that I 
will grab that and put that into the Congressional Record a little bit 
later, Mr. Speaker. It is one of the first things they did at 
Jamestown.
  Additionally, inside that church they built--and now there is a 
church that has been built just outside the old foundation that they 
laid at that time so you can walk inside of the church and stand there 
and see the old foundation of the church that was built maybe not in 
1607, but very close to 1607--there is a poster, a sign inside. It is 
fitting that it is on the east wall of the inside of the church. It 
says: Here in this place, in 1607, English common law came to the New 
World.
  It is a profound thing to stand there and read and understand that is 
what that meant to the earliest settlers in America: English common law 
arrived, the rule of law arrived with them.
  That rule of law, what was it rooted in?
  It is rooted in--once you go back to old England, you can trace the 
law to the Romans who occupied. And that Roman law can be traced all 
the way back to the birth of Christ and before. And that Roman law also 
can be traced back through Greece, who shared a fair amount of that 
respect and rule of law that they had to be successful nations, they 
had to have a rule of law.
  It can be traced, then, from the Romans and the Greeks back to Moses 
himself. Mosaic law is the foundation for law in America, and it is 
traceable. The Greek philosophers and the leaders in Greece would talk 
about the rule of law. They would be sometimes teased and ridiculed by 
some of their competitors. They would say: ``That is not your thoughts. 
You borrowed that from Moses. That is Mosaic law. I can hear it in your 
voice. I know that is where it came from.''
  Mosaic law was traced to Greece and Rome, and from Rome then on to 
Western Europe where the Romans occupied much of that all the way to 
England and beyond. That is where the rule of law came from.
  One of the pillars of American exceptionalism is the rule of law. If 
you would pull that out of the equation of the history of the United 
States of America, you would end up with an entirely different country, 
an entirely different culture, and an entirely different structure 
here.
  We respect the law. We don't have police officers that pull us over 
because they need money for their children and accept a bribe because 
they said that you were speeding. If any of that happens, we look at 
their badge number, and that officer is soon out of a job. We clean our 
society up of those kinds of things. But that is not the case in Third 
World countries. They know what mordida means south of the border. That 
happens in country after country. But here, we respect the law.
  We have open meetings laws where the function of government is out in 
the open so the public can be in and participate. That is rooted clear 
back in the Greek city-states.
  I recall going into the National Archives to take a look and stand 
and gaze at the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, 
where you can get your hand within 8 inches of that parchment where 
they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. As I 
waited to step before the Declaration, there was a display of the 
artifacts from the Greek city-states where they would gather together 
all of the eligible-age men--at that time it was only men, but, of 
course, now, today, we fixed that--but as they would gather them 
together, they would all have a voice.
  They had a situation where there would be what they would call 
demagogues. The Greek demagogues would be those who were so skillful in 
their oratorical skills that they could wind up the emotions of the 
other Greeks and sometimes get them to stampede in the wrong direction. 
If they consistently stampeded their fellow citizens in an ill-logical 
direction, eventually they would say--I don't know what the name would 
be of the Greek individual, but maybe it would be like: Demetrius is 
causing too much trouble for us, we are going to have to blackball him.
  So if the demagogue was too effective and caused too much damage to 
the public policy, then they would go through, there would be one door 
there that you would vote in, and the next door would be the discard 
door. Each voter, each citizen, would get a white and a black marble. 
They would cast

[[Page 9596]]

their ballot, blackball that Greek demagogue and banish him from the 
city-state.
  There is much that is rooted as part of this country that is rooted 
back in this era. We need to teach it and we need to have respect for 
each other.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________