Final Address

Outgoing House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) used his final chamber floor speech in the wake of the 300-119 vote to approve the fiscal year 2015 defense policy conference bill to make one last call to end sequestration. Here's an excerpt:

Next year, the Armed Services Committee will be in excellent hands. Chairman-elect Thornberry and Ranking Member Smith have their work cut out. But they are both up to the task. I hope sometime next year a compromise can come to this floor that will end sequestration.  There isn't some magical solution that Republicans can support and the President can sign without sacrifice on both sides.

When that solution comes, it will be a tough vote on both sides.  For some of my colleagues, it might be a fatal vote.  I pray that you will hold this thought in your hearts when that vote comes: Remember the great sacrifice our troops are making around the world.

Right now, they are walking patrol in the mountains of Afghanistan. They are at sea within missile range of Iran. They are flying wingtip-to-wingtip against Russia bombers over the North Sea. They are nose to nose with the North Koreans. They are sweating in the equatorial heat of Africa, fighting a horrible disease. They are standing on the sand of Iraq, risking everything against a brutal enemy.

They take those risks, they make those sacrifices, because of you. They do it for you. They do it for us. For their families, for their flag. For our freedom.

And how we have repaid them? With equipment that is falling apart. By laying them off while they’re off in war zones. By docking their pay and their medical benefits. By throwing them out of the service and onto a broken economy.

Lord Byron said "they never fail, who die in a great cause." I've met our forces on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, dirty and sweaty from fighting. I've watched too many families spend long months waiting for the deployed to come home. I’ve seen too many heroes put into the ground.

They never failed us. Not once.

So shame on us, if we’re unwilling to pay back the debt we owe them. Shame on all of us, from the White House down, if we cannot make far less a sacrifice on their behalf.