John Carter

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following: H. Res.-- Recognizing and commending Baylor University quarterback Robert Griffin III for winning the 2011 Heisman Trophy and for his academic and athletic accomplishments. Whereas Robert Griffin III was born on February 12, 1990, to United States Army Sergeants Robert Jr. and Jacqueline Griffin in Okinawa, Japan; Whereas Robert Griffin III's mother and father have instilled in him an unparalleled work ethic, outstanding leadership, discipline, and a desire to excel; Whereas Robert Griffin III graduated No. 7 from Copperas Cove High School, in Copperas Cove, Texas, in 2008; Whereas Robert Griffin III graduated from the Baylor University with a 3.67 GPA in Political Science in December of 2010; Whereas Robert Griffin III is currently pursuing a Masters degree in Communication at the Baylor University; Whereas Robert Griffin III became Baylor University's starting quarterback in 2008; Whereas the University of Baylor football team finished the regular season with a 9-3 record, its best record since 1986; Whereas the University of Baylor football team is ranked number twelve in the Bowl Championship Series and fifteen in the Associated Press rankings; Whereas in 2011 Robert Griffin III completed 267 of 369 passes, for 3,998 yards and 36 touchdowns while throwing only 6 interceptions; Whereas in 2011 Robert Griffin III lead college football with a 192.3 passing efficiency rating, which would break the single-season record in Football Bowl Subdivision history; Whereas Robert Griffin III has accounted for 10,071 yards passing and 77 touchdowns, with only 17 interceptions, during his career at Baylor University; Whereas Robert Griffin III is the Baylor career leader in most offensive categories, including passing yards, passing touchdowns, and rushing touchdowns by a quarterback; Whereas Robert Griffin III was named the Big 12 Conference Offensive Player of the Year for 2011; Whereas Robert Griffin III was named Academic All-Big 12, 1st Team for 2011; Whereas Robert Griffin III received the Davey O'Brien Award for the best of all National Collegiate Athletic Association quarterbacks in 2011; and Whereas on December 10, 2011, Robert Griffin III became the 1st Baylor football player to win the Heisman Trophy, college football's most coveted and prestigious award: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives-- (1) commends Robert Griffin III for his academic and athletic accomplishments; (2) congratulates Robert Griffin III for winning the 2011 Heisman Trophy; and (3) directs the Clerk of the House of Representatives to transmit a copy of this resolution to Baylor University President Ken Starr and Head Football Coach Art Briles for appropriate display.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, last week, I dropped a resolution commending Robert Griffin III for winning the 2011 Heisman Trophy. Robert Griffin, a student of Baylor University, is one of the outstanding Americans in this country, an amazing young man who graduated from high school at Copperas Cove, Texas, in my district. He graduated in 2008, went off to Baylor University to play football and to go to school. He graduated from Baylor University in 2010. I think that alone is pretty fantastic. He went on to be the quarterback of the Baylor football team, leading them to the best season that they've had in generations. They are ranked number 12 in the Bowl Championship Series. This is a young man whose mother and father are sergeants in the Army. He was born overseas while they were serving. He now is the Heisman Trophy winner, has been named the outstanding player in the country, and he is not only outstanding as a student but he is outstanding as a player and as a human being. He chose Baylor University because he wanted to go to a good Christian school. This young man won the Davey O'Brien Award. He is the kind of role model that we want our children to aspire to be. He is hardworking, with a good work ethic. He believes in his fellow players. He cares, he leads, and he wins. This young man should be commended. Within 2 years from now, he will have a master's degree and a law degree in addition to his bachelor's degree, and he still has one more year of eligibility. I would say this is the kind of kid we all wish our kid could grow up to be. I want to commend his parents, the people of Copperas Cove, and the State of Texas for producing this fine young football player. We call him RG3.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. I thank the gentleman from Nebraska for yielding and for all of your hard work on this issue. This is an issue that is important to the United States of America. It's just that simple--that you don't have this kind of an opportunity in the economic environment that we have in this country very often. We have a country that has seen the worst unemployment, rampant unemployment and has had the most number of quarters with bad unemployment figures since the Great Depression. And here we have our Canadian neighbors to the north with this Keystone XL pipeline that is proposed to stretch 1,700 miles, cost $7 billion to construct over a 2- year period, and create 100,000 or more jobs for America. And this is paid for. This is other people's money. We're not asking the Federal Government to spend more stimulus money on this energy project, as it did on the famous Solyndra project in California. We're asking it just to approve this pipeline. Now the reason I'm here to talk is because starting at age 16 until I graduated from law school, every summer of my life, I worked on pipelines. I was not the engineer. I was the guy with the shovel. I dug the ditches, and I cut the grass and operated the survey crew, and I gauged the gauges. And I did all of the various things that need to get done. I have done them in the State of Texas, in the State of Louisiana, and I was actually on a pipeline that stretched from northern Holland to Belgium in Europe. I worked there one summer. So I personally know the pipeline business from the bottom end. These are great jobs. Even the guy that wields the shovel has a great job, a great-paying job. That's why I did these jobs, to help pay my way through school. I found them to be very professional organizations, and I worked for five different companies. So I am known as, as they say, an old pipeliner. This project is a no-brainer. We created an Energy Department in this country during the Carter administration, I believe--and I could be corrected on that. Its purpose was to wean us off of Middle Eastern oil. Now our neighbors, our first cousins up in Canada, have found oil up there. They want to have us do the refining process for them. They have laid their part of the pipeline and the infrastructure in the north. And they're major participants in this pipeline coming south, to bring this crude down to the southern major refinery area in this country so that it can be refined into products that we use every day, products that we depend on every day. An estimated 100,000 jobs will be created by this pipeline. And you know, I'm not even sure they know how to estimate pipeline jobs because there is so much more that the American public wouldn't understand about the construction of a pipeline. There are going to be roads built. There are going to be fences built. Things that you never would even relate to the pipeline business are required to get the labor and the materials to the various locations on the construction of this pipeline. So every State this passes through in this country is going to be a State where they are going to benefit from good-paying jobs. These people that argue these are temporary jobs--this is a 2-year project, and these are the kinds of jobs that American folks, they pray for. These are the ones that the unemployed people of this country are on their knees every night asking to come to their town so they can have a good-paying job, a job that will support their family. And out of these construction projects can come other things that are related to the maintenance of the pipeline. This is a plus-plus-plus opportunity for American workers. Here we are at a time when the number one issue in the United States is putting Americans back to work. We have all this peripheral stuff. But it all comes back to that we don't get our country back on track until we put Americans back to work. And quite honestly, the attempts we've made in the past have not been very successful. This is a guaranteed successful job-creating project. We have track records to prove it. You can look back on the history of pipelines, and these construction programs have always been part of prosperity wherever they go. Now this is not a labor versus management issue. Five major labor unions have endorsed this project and have signed project labor agreements with the TransCanada Corporation. Over 20,000 construction jobs will directly be created to install the line. On top of that labor required to put this in the ground, tens of thousands of more jobs will be created as refineries expand both in Texas and in Louisiana to refine this. And out of the whole project, the estimate is clear that it is going to be 100,000 jobs or more. Now where's the downside? Environmental issues are being raised. And in talks about going through the great State of Nebraska--Mr. Terry's State--some people are opposing it for environmental reasons. But if you pulled out a map of the pipelines going east and west in this country, I haven't counted them, but I would say almost half of them pass through the State of Nebraska. They've been there for years, and they have never been an environmental problem to the State of Nebraska. If you look at the pipeline map of the State of Texas and Louisiana, it looks like a spider web of pipelines. You never hear of major pipeline disasters in our States. Pipelines are the safest and most economical way of transporting petroleum and other products. With unemployment just recently dropping below 9 percent for the first time in a long time--not much below, and we will probably go back above 9 percent as soon as the temporary holiday employment is over-- when we are sitting here with above 9 percent unemployment, why in the world wouldn't we want to join with our neighbors, our friends and those people who have been our friends forever, the Canadians, take the resource that they are properly capturing in their part of the world and are willing to share with us down here, to refine the products and build this pipeline and build prosperity right down the middle of the country. Where's the downside? Mr. Speaker, I join my friend Lee Terry of Nebraska in supporting the Keystone XL pipeline. It is a plus for America, and more importantly, it's a plus for the working men and women of this country. And it's another step towards energy independence in North America. With that, I thank my friend Lee Terry for allowing me to participate in this discussion.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Gohmert, let me read to you a resolution, H. Res. 495, which I dropped yesterday. It's a resolution recognizing the November 5, 2009, attack on Fort Hood, Texas, as an act of radical Islamic terrorism and jihad: Whereas the United States Army Major Nidal Hasan is reported to have communicated on multiple occasions with radical Islamic terrorist, Anwar al-Awlaki, on the topic of justifying jihad on the United States and its Armed Forces; Whereas Major Hasan delivered addresses to the Department of Defense personnel concerning the justification of jihad against the United States Armed Forces; Whereas Major Hasan is reported to have planned and trained for an attack on unarmed members of the United States Armed Forces at Fort Hood, Texas, with the specific intent to kill and injure those troops before the deployment to overseas theaters of war; Whereas Major Hasan is reported to have declared his attack to be an act of jihad in defense of Islam, shouting ``God is great'' in Arabic while gunning down unarmed military personnel and civilians; Whereas Major Hasan is currently charged with murder of 13 and attempted murder of 32 United States citizens during that attack; And whereas the Department of Defense submitted correspondence to the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security which referred to the violent Islamic extremist attack on Fort Hood, Texas, in the context of a broader threat of workplace violence: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, that the House of Representatives recognizes the attack on Fort Hood, Texas, as an act of radical Islamic terrorism and jihad against the United States Armed Forces. I have submitted this to the House, and I'm going to be seeking support for this resolution. I wonder sometimes what our Forefathers would think of how far we've gone out of kilter in recognizing who's our friend and who's our enemy, or how we are so concerned about what the speak police or the voice police would say to us about some language we use that we would be willing to put those men and women who wear the uniform of our armed services at risk rather than make a statement that might offend somebody. I think our grandparents would look at this country and say, what happened, what happened to the United States of America that I fought for in World War II or Korea or Vietnam? When did it become evil for Americans to speak the truth? Why would people who have four stars on their shoulder, who we highly respect as leaders of our armed services, tolerate being instructed in this concept of political correctness and be treating this as if it were an ordinary incident of workforce violence? How do we justify that? Where is the common sense in this effort? We're worried about hurting other people's feelings, and other people are killing us. I mean, this doesn't make any sense. And most of all, let's not forget--because I attended the funeral of one of the civilians. I have met with some of the wives and children of these dead combat soldiers and talked to the parents that looked me in the eye and said, how do I figure this out? My kid was there to be deployed for the fourth time. He stood in harm's way for our country 3 years already, and he goes over to the deployment center for a routine matter dealing with paperwork and he gets attacked and killed in Texas, just right down the street from where he lives. And his children and his wife are without a brave American soldier who had proven his worth in combat in three deployments already. This is something that his parent sits there and says, how could anything like this ever happen? I mean, I know to be praying every day for my child when he's in combat. This is the profession he has chosen; I respect it. I fear for him; I worry about him. I want to make sure-- he or she, because our ladies are fighting just like our men. And now I get the word that my son is killed down the street from his kid's elementary school while he's going through a routine act of filling out paperwork in the Army? And then what do we tell that parent when later we find out that a report has come out from the government saying ``routine workforce violence''? Come on, come on. What's wrong with this? I think it's just tragic. I introduced a bill that just said, look, acknowledge it for what it is. Nothing will draw disrespect for the Purple Heart, or others who are wounded in combat in a combat theater, to just acknowledge that these innocent people got attacked on their way to their next deployment, or on their way back from their last deployment, on our soil, on our military base, in our State of Texas. Can we at least give them the respect to acknowledge that they're part of the war effort, that this guy shot them because we are at war with terrorists? Give them combat credit. Give them the honor and respect that comes from that. But we're still not able to get that done. We're going to keep trying. I have people call me from all over the country and say, how are we doing? You know, my kid at least ought to get a Purple Heart. My daughter ought to get a Purple Heart for the wound she received, and now she's debilitated and has to go out of the Army. My son, who's going through constant therapy for his head wound, he ought to be recognized by the Army for what happened to him, the reality of what happened to him. And so we won't make the easy acknowledgement that these folks were in combat. And the only reason they didn't fight this guy is because they were not armed. And the reason they were not armed is because you're not supposed to be armed on post. This guy attacks them. If they would have been armed, it would have been over when the first bullet fired. These are combat veterans. But no, we are very strict--oh, we're now going to change this designation the Army has or that designation the Army has. But we aren't going to call this guy a terrorist. Don't mention the word ``Islamic.'' Don't recognize his relationship with an Islamic terrorist. Ignore all that evidence, ignore the testimony of 50-some- odd witnesses and say we will treat it within the concept of workforce violence. What does that say to the wife or husband of that soldier, or the father or mother of that soldier, or the brother and sister of that soldier that was killed or wounded with a debilitating wound--many of which are still struggling with their wounds, just like they do in combat. Yet we conveniently define things in that situation, but refuse to define the act that caused the situation. This just is not right. That's why I'm very grateful my friend Mr. Gohmert and I came down here to talk about this. This is all about trying to just set the record straight. You know, let's call it like we see it, and let's don't think we have to protect anybody. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the Muslim religion. If he was a Baptist and was shouting Baptist slogans as his reason for shooting somebody, we ought to call him a Baptist. This is a tragedy. It's a terrible tragedy because these were soldiers, all of whom had been willing to go in harm's way on behalf of our country, and most of whom had gone into harm's way on behalf of our country and suffered through that miserable weather and those dark lonely nights, and all the other things that soldiers suffer through when they're addressing terrorism around the world. I say around the world because we've still got plenty of places we're addressing terrorism, not just Iraq and Afghanistan. To have us be willing to soft-pedal what happened to them is an American tragedy, and I'm going to continue to talk about it. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CARTER. Yes.

Mr. CARTER. This exhibit here is from the San Francisco Chronicle: Political Correctness on Fort Hood at the Pentagon. Political correctness is alive in the Pentagon. Witness the protecting the force lessons from Fort Hood. A Department of Defense report released last week on the November 5 shooting, if the report's purpose was to craft lessons to prevent future attacks, how could they leave out radical Islam? Ignoring Hasan's pro-terrorist Web postings, the report instead focuses on workplace violence programs to prevent workplace violence such as the post office's Going Postal program and the stress imposed on military health care providers. The whole point of that San Francisco Chronicle article is to point out, I think, the irony of what we are teaching our soldiers to protect them from events like this and what we are excluding from the evidence. And I think that's blatantly not in the best interests of the soldier.

Mr. CARTER. I thank the gentleman. You just referenced in your poster and showed us a picture of Mr. Abdo, the man that was saying he couldn't go to war. That was back on July 28, 2011, after the workplace violence. Another soldier made the same claim, and Abdo was also referenced in this story. More and more of these folks are stepping up and saying they can't be deployed because they are Muslim and can't kill Muslims, and they reference Hasan, this man who is sitting in the Bell County jail awaiting trial probably this spring and is, I understand it, awaiting trial on a death penalty case, a potential death penalty case. Everybody knew what it was when they attacked the Pentagon. What happened to us that we decided when, in front of 50 witnesses, somebody shoots a bunch of people and we can't recognize what that was? This was a surprise attack like Pearl Harbor. That was a premeditated murder like you and I have dealt with in the past with more witnesses than you could put on a stand. I mean, this is not going to be a hard case to prove because, fortunately, he didn't kill everybody in the room. In fact, he left an awful lot of witnesses there to testify. He is just lucky he didn't get killed in an active shooter program that our two police officers used to respond effectively to his slaughter.

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, 13 adults and one unborn child were killed and 31 individuals were wounded in a shooting attack at Fort Hood, Texas, on November 5, 2009. Since that time, the Department of Defense has taken no steps to award combat benefits to the casualties or even officially recognize the attack as a terrorist incident. The House and Senate have included two reform measures in the NDAA, which we just passed, while additional attacks have been attempted by similar high-profile radical Islamic terrorists. It is past time for the government to deliver on this act. Mr. Speaker, here we are almost 3 years later, and there's been a recent report that has come out; and in that report, it references this incident of this slaughter of American troops on Fort Hood soil in Texas. It references that it shall be taken up as part of workplace violence. The Obama regime calls the Fort Hood shooting ``workplace violence.'' Sure, it's workplace violence: it's where they work and it's violence. But we have a concept of what workplace violence is. And your normal workplace violence is not preceded by a shout by the shooter, ``God is great,'' in the Arabic language. It's not preceded by discussions by the alleged perpetrator. It's alleged because he hasn't been convicted yet. And we, in a free American world, take the position that all are innocent until proven guilty. So we will call him the ``alleged'' shooter. But there's clear evidence in reports by the Defense Department and by reports by the news media, reports by witnesses on the scene, reports by his fellow soldiers, reports by folks from Walter Reed Hospital where this American-trained, military-trained doctor worked that he had advocated that the American soldier was wrong and that he was contrary, and he spoke and preached Islamic terrorism. So your normal workplace violence, that's not a part of the factor. Yet this is what happened in this case. Senator Collins on Wednesday blasted the Defense Department, and bless her for it, for classifying the Fort Hood massacre as workplace violence and suggested political correctness is being placed above the security of the Nation's Armed Forces at home. I've been talking about this now since the day after this happened. We can't have a world where political correctness fails to define the criminal act. By its very nature, whether we're talking about military law and the criminal relations in military law, we're just talking about criminal acts in general, we have to be able to define them. Just to make the system work we have to be able to define them. But more importantly, we owe a duty and a responsibility to the American soldier to call an event what it is and not try to put a smokescreen over it or cloud the issue or in any way worry about the feelings of groups, because the definition is the definition. This man identified himself that he was committing this act in the name of ``God is great'' in Arabic. He acknowledged when questioned that it was part of his mission. He acknowledged that he had dealt with terrorist spokesmen in the past and that the concept came from his interaction with Awlaki and others. So this guy is an Islamic terrorist. There's no other way you can describe this gentleman. But now years after the event as he sits in the Bell County Jail in Belton, Texas, we continue to have reports coming down from our Defense Department that the folks that are responsible for our soldiers and responsible for those who died in this incident want to downplay this to be treated as an incident of workplace violence with all the white bread connotation that that has. To me, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. So let's look at some of the evidence we have that connects this to Islamic terrorism, recognizing the November 5, 2009, attack on Fort Hood, Texas, as an act of radical Islamic terrorism and jihad. Anwar Awlaki connection. Now, Mr. Awlaki is no longer with us. We have taken that boy out. Yet the bottom line is, at the time this happened, they were directly connected. This man preached, taught, and encouraged violence--Islamic terrorist violence: ``Hasan's presentations to the DOD on jihad justification.'' He would argue with his fellow soldiers about the justification for having jihad against the American military. Mr. Hasan was a member of the United States Army. He was a major. He had been serving in the Medical Corps as a psychiatrist. He was trained with American taxpayer dollars, but he was preaching jihad to soldiers, and there was lots of evidence. I had a bill, which was included in this recent defense bill that we just passed. It said that this guy was telling people that he'd believed in this kind of thing since medical school. Now he's a major, serving as a psychiatrist, advising our soldiers. ``Hasan purchased and practiced with high-capacity firearms prior to the attack.'' He went out and he bought firearms. He bought them at a local gun store. Of the guns that were used in the killings, one of them was a semiautomatic weapon with a large magazine capacity. He went out to the firing range and familiarized himself with these weapons prior to this incident. You can't think of this as some guy who goes postal all of a sudden. This guy was planning this whole event. He shouts, ``God is great'' in Arabic, before he starts shooting, but they refer to it in the context of the broader threat of workplace violence. I think there is a very good argument that the evidence shows this was a premeditated act on the part of Major Hasan; and I believe when this case finally gets to trial that the evidence will be overwhelming that it was premeditated. At the time of the event, Lieutenant General Cone, the III Corps Commander at Fort Hood, told NBC's ``Today'' show on the Friday after the shooting that the soldiers who witnessed the shooting rampage that left 13 people dead reported that the gunman shouted, ``Allahu Akbar''--which means ``God is great''--before opening fire at the Texas post. The day after, it was being reported that he did this. Yet, in the initial report that came out from the Defense Department, the man's name didn't even appear. The relationship to any Islamic terrorism was not referenced. It was like any major from any outfit just wandered in and started shooting soldiers, like he was having a bad day or something. Now we get another comment saying that we're going to treat this in the bigger scope of workplace violence. Certainly, we want to prevent workplace violence in every workplace, but the connotation is that this is just something that happened. It's not something that just happened because, quite honestly, since that time, others have been caught who reportedly were trying to imitate this shooter, Mr. Hasan. We introduced a bill, the Fort Hood Families Benefits Protection Act. It would award both military and civilian casualties of the Ford Hood attack with combat status to ensure full benefits and eligibility for the Purple Heart and other awards and for the civilian award equivalence to the Secretary of Defense's Defense of Freedom medal. Now, why did I ask for that? Because there was a precedent for it. When they flew the plane into the Pentagon on 9/11, this is what was the finding of the Department of Defense--that it was an act of terrorism, and therefore they should be treated as combat casualties, and those two medals were awarded. This didn't just come off the top of my head. This is what happened with the first terrorist attack in our country and with the second or third or whatever attack this one was. When this man walked into that room, there were people in civilian garb, and there were people in uniform. He went out of his way to shoot the people in uniform. The civilians who were injured were injured because of misfire or misdirection. As he walked down that line, his target was all of those soldiers who were doing nothing more than either coming back from being off post and out of the country--or wherever they'd been--or preparing for their next duty stations, wherever they may be going--Iraq or Afghanistan. They were being processed and they were in this big room. He walked down the line, shooting everybody in uniform. Now, when you're killing our combat soldiers and when you're crying out slogans of the jihad terrorists, why wouldn't you think it's a terrorist attack, and why shouldn't these people who died in the line of duty be treated like those at the Pentagon who died in the line of duty? In fact, except for what we were able to put together in circumstantial evidence after the fact, at the time of the incident, we had no idea who flew that plane into the Pentagon. We just made an educated guess. In this case, before this shooting started, the guy identified himself and what his mission was. For some reason, in this world of political correctness, someone has the idea that this is good for the morale of our military soldiers or that it's good for something as, I think, the Chief of Staff said when this happened: Oh, this is sure going to hurt our Islamic outreach program. Whether it's good for that or not, I hold nothing against the Islamic people nor does anybody at Fort Hood; but we hold a lot against Islamic terrorists who kill soldiers, and the Department of Defense should have the guts to step up and to stand up for these soldiers. I see my good friend and colleague from Texas, former Judge Louie Gohmert, has joined me here. Congressman Gohmert, I yield such time as you may require.

Mr. CARTER. Don't you wonder have we changed so much since the attack on Pearl Harbor that we don't recognize an enemy attack on us and we just want to stick our head in the sand and act like it didn't happen? Here's an interesting report from Time magazine. They are asking the question, and they state: The U.S. military just released a report-- this is that first report--not once mentioning Major Hasan's name or even discussing whether the killings had anything to do with his Muslim faith. The fort ignores the elephant in the room. That's what I said. And it's true. It does ignore the elephant in the room. If before the first bullet is fired, a man shouts, Allahu Akhbar, that elephant is in the room. And all of the cover-up and all of the writing of the reports with reference to typical workforce violence, or treat it as workforce violence, it doesn't make sense. It was an attack on American soldiers in uniform. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. CARTER. When you read the reports on Major Hasan, he was acting erratically. In the months before the attack, he promoted radical Islamic views while at Walter Reed Hospital. He exchanged email with Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni cleric with terrorist ties. All of those references also pertained to the soldiers you were talking about right there. It is all part of a network. Now, is every Muslim that is involved in the United States military involved in this? Absolutely not. I went to the National Training Center in California, and I met loyal, truly loyal and patriotic Muslim Americans who are helping our soldiers understand the nature, the language, the concepts, everything that they might be facing as they interact with Muslim civilians over in Iraq. And they do it in constructed villages. I met a guy who was a former cab driver from Chicago who said, Man, I've come up in the world; I'm now mayor of this town, because he was negotiating with a mayor and city councilman for our soldiers as they came into the National Training Center. These people are patriots. They are living out in the desert just to help our soldiers understand. I'm not anti those folks, but you can't have a world where you refuse to identify evil, and this is what you do when political correctness overcomes the truth. Janet Napolitano personally testified: Violent Islamic terrorism was part and parcel of the Fort Hood killings, Homeland Security Napolitano said on February 24, 2010, about 3 months after the event, 4 months after the event, in a Senate Homeland Security Committee. She testified--accurately--and I praise her for it, that this was a terrorist act. And yet we continue to have from the Department of Defense the soft- soaping of this whole issue and the disguising of this whole issue. And now with their statement that they are going to deal with it as they would deal with any workplace violence, you know, it just never stops. The shoe bomber, the Christmas following this incident, the shoe bomber who did exactly what Major Hasan did, reading back what the press reported, acted erratically before his attack, promoted radical Islamic views, and exchanged emails with Awlaki in Yemen. He did all of those things. And when caught, referenced Major Hasan as one of his heroes. He got caught before he blew up an airplane. Praise God. Thank goodness. So, you know, over 3 years since the incident, the Defense Department is still taking the position that this should be treated as normal workforce violence or something to that effect. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. CARTER. Correct.

Mr. CARTER. He was Chief of Staff of the Army.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize the Yoemen Marching Band of Cameron High School who placed third out of the 297 bands in state 2A marching competition in San Antonio on November 7, 2011. The 97 member band is under the direction of Stephen Moss, head director, and Craig George and Danielle Roberts, assistant directors. Only ten bands performed in the finals competition, and the Yoemen Marching Band received a 1st place vote from all five judges, which advanced them to the UIL State Marching Contest in San Antonio for the first time in the history of the school. The band competed in the preliminary competition at the UIL State Marching Contest, which advanced them to the finals portion of the competition. The Yomemen Marching Band came in 2nd place behind the two time champion Queen City. This 2nd place finish advanced the band to the highly coveted finals competition that same evening. The Yoeman High School Marching Band was also selected to play at the World War II Memorial in Washington DC and was one of the ten bands selected to play in the Houston Livetock Show and Rodeo Parade this past spring. I congratulate the Cameron High School Yoemen Marching Band on their accomplishments and I am proud to represent them in the United States Congress. RECOGNIZING THE SEMI-FINALISTS FOR THE ASIAN AMERICAN SUCCESS YOUTHCON

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise as a proud member of this conference committee and of this committee. The Constitution of the United States gives us instructions that we are to watch our treasury and protect it and make sure that the money that we spend out of that treasury is appropriate for the operation of this country. Chairman Rogers and the three ranking members who have operated in this particular mini-bus have been very noble in that effort. A commitment was made under the Budget Control Act that we would stay within $1.043 trillion, and this first start of finishing this appropriations process will see to it that we meet that commitment. Chairman Rogers has been very, very distinct and positive that he will meet that commitment, and this is the first step to meeting that commitment. It is important that although this is a noble effort, we have funded what is needed, and we have given an open process both in subcommittee, committee, and on this floor. And by that, we have shown the American people that we are making our promises known, that we are on the route to turning this country around and setting it back on a fiscal track that we can sustain. I want to commend all who have been involved in this process, both the ranking members and the chairmen, for they have done noble work to come up with this product. And this product is deserving of being supported by every member of this conference and of this entire Congress, and I urge them to support this noble product that has been a tough fight, but we have accomplished it.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 298, a bill that would designate the United States Post Office located at 500 East Whitestone Boulevard in Cedar Park, Texas as the ``Army Specialist Matthew Troy Morris Post Office Building.'' Mr. Speaker, I have the high honor of representing the brave men and women at Fort Hood, Texas, the largest military installation in the world. Every day that I have the opportunity to serve in Congress, I do so knowing that my number one responsibility is to give our men and women in uniform the support and resources they need to be successful. Each time I visit Fort Hood, I see America's finest, the soldiers who put it all on the line to allow us to live in the greatest country on Earth. Only three days ago we celebrated Veterans Day, a somber reminder that freedom is not free. And today, here on the House floor, we remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country, another reminder to us all that freedom is not free. Representing Fort Hood, Texas also comes with the sober reminder of the sacrifice that our young men and women in the military and their families make to the cause of freedom. Since September 11, 2001, 384 army soldiers have been killed in action from the 31st district of Texas, the highest number of any congressional district in the country. Central Texans and their families have sacrificed much, and know that freedom is not free. Today we celebrate the life and remember one of those patriots who served our country and gave his all, Army Specialist Matthew Troy Morris. Matthew Morris was born on July 16, 1984, in Fairfax, Virginia. He attended Fishburne Military School in Waynesboro, Virginia, where he earned an ROTC leadership award. He later attended Cedar Park High School in Cedar Park, Texas, and went on to score in the 90th percentile on each section of the General Educational Development Test. Specialist Morris enlisted in the U.S. Army in December 2005, and attended Basic Combat Training (BCT) at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, followed by Advanced Individual Training (AIT) at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland. He graduated from AIT in June 2006 as a Power Generation Equipment Mechanic and was assigned to Howitzer Battery, 2nd Squadron, and the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment at Fort Hood, Texas. Specialist Morris served with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division in Balad, Iraq. Despite the dangerous nature of this work, he remained devoted to his mission, and the heroism he demonstrated in Iraq earned him the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon and Combat Action Ribbon. Matthew Troy Morris was killed on April 6th, 2008, when his vehicle encountered a makeshift bomb in Balad, Iraq. Matthew was only 23 years old. He is the oldest of four children, leaving behind Cory, Katie and Sam. Matthew's parents are Lisa and Glenn Morris of Cedar Park, Texas. His father Glenn served our country in the Vietnam War and we thank him for his service. Matthew was engaged to be married to Ms. Julia Richardson. He is survived by his great-grandmother Ruth Staton Jordan, his grandparents Nancy Jackson and Joane Walters, his aunt Diane Afflerbach and uncles, John and Brian Walters. The sacrifice that our military families make often goes unnoticed, and I would like the entire Morris family to know that we will never forget Matthew and the pain that you have endured. Our country, and this House, has not forgotten Matthew and we are proud to celebrate his life on this day. Matthew Morris exemplified the highest ideals of the U.S. Armed Forces, and although his passing has left a void in the lives of those who were fortunate enough to know him, they will forever carry memories of this heroic young man close in their hearts. Mr. Speaker, I urge immediate passage of H.R. 298, and ask my colleagues to join me in honoring an American patriot and hero, Army Specialist Matthew Troy Morris of Cedar Park, Texas.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. Absolutely. You'd be dealing with the EPA. You'd be dealing with fish. You'd be dealing with the situation on endangered species, and that's clear down to the microscopic animals that you can't even see. All that. There's no way the Hoover Dam would get built like that. There was a thing on the History Channel, I guess it was the night before last that I watched, about the building of the Alaskan highway. We had gone to war with Japan, and everybody looked at the United States and said my gosh, the Aleutian Islands, a part of the Alaskan-- at that time Alaskan Territory, they're right close to the Japanese, and they're probably going to invade those islands. And how are we going to get materials, supplies, and men up to Alaska? There was no road between the United States and Alaska. Nobody checked a single regulatory act. Nobody did anything but say: Get every bulldozer we've got and head for the border. We're cutting a road straight up through Canada. We'll design it on the way up there. We'll direction it on the way up there. They took off and they built a road. It was a gravel road, but it was the first road that connected the lower 48 to Alaska. I looked at that thing and I said: My gosh, they wouldn't have gotten a mile and a half before they would have been enjoined by every kind of group on God's green Earth in this country under the present regulations we have in place, not even expanded regulations which are getting worse, the present regulations. So when the President made that famous statement now that I've enjoyed very much, he laughed and said that I found out shovel-ready today is not really shovel-ready. And it's exactly the same regulations we're talking about here that keep it from being shovel-ready. We're building about a 21-mile stretch of highway in my home county-- trying to build one. We've been at it for 8 years. The money's in place. Section 1 has got bulldozers sitting on the ground because section 1 has been approved, and we're still trying to get 21 miles of road built through regulations. I will say now, after a little work on our part, some regulators are being pretty reasonable, and we want to thank them for it. But the days of the Hoover Dam and the Alaskan highway will never come back, not with the regulatory environment we have here. What we're trying to do is not let this thing expand any further. We're not trying to kill species. We're not trying to mess up the air, like you said, or the water. We're trying to say we've got a good situation in place. By the way, Mr. President, if it's a national security issue or a national emergency, submit it to us. Tell us what the emergency is. Let's visit with it, and if that's the case, this Congress will be reasonable. If we need review of the courts and the individuals need review of the courts, we provide that in here. It's very respectful of other people's consideration on these rights. For a small bill, there's a lot of good thinking in this bill. Let me just read you something. This came out in the Columbus Dispatch. This is a quote from there: Obama's massive intrusions into the heart of the Nation's economy have not helped: Buying auto manufacturers and running roughshod over bankruptcy law and investor rights in the process, taking over the sixth of the economy devoted to health care, imposing a new regulatory regime on the financial sector and spending hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars with no very great benefit. Add to this the recent actions of the Democrat-controlled National Labor Relations Board. Perhaps its most damaging move has been to bring legal action against aircraft manufacturer Boeing Company for building a manufacturing plant in South Carolina. The NLRB seeks to punish a company for creating new jobs, at a time when unemployment is more than 9 percent and the Nation's economic growth barely registers. The chilling effect on other companies that are considering building new plants is incalculable. These moves have cowed, usurped, paralyzed or blocked the private-sector decision-making that is necessary to get the Nation moving again. That's a quote from the Columbus Dispatch on 9/5/11, this year. And that's a perfect statement of a big picture of the regulatory burden that's made the papers. But you can have just as much trouble with one bug. So, as we deal with this, we've got to have something that says King's X until we get this economy back rolling. I will once again yield to my friend, and you tell me if you've got other things you want to talk about.

Mr. CARTER. That's good common sense. Thank you for doing that. We appreciate it. Congressman Ribble, I understand you have some support for this bill in the Senate. Would you like to tell us a little bit about that?

Mr. CARTER. I think that's creative thinking. We need to get unemployment below 7.8 percent. But it's a good point to start, and it gives us an opportunity to target what I honestly believe and a lot of economists agree with: The real solution to this situation we're in with our country right now is to get Americans back to work. The President believes one more stimulus. The last one didn't work. The massive spending, the trillions of dollars of additional debt we've accumulated in the last 3 years didn't quite work. It wasn't quite big enough. We need to do it just one more time. And this time it will push it over the top. Well, I just don't think that the American people are buying it. They're watching the current events of today, where we loan money to companies that didn't have a concept that was going to pay for itself, and they're going broke; where we threw money at a problem instead of putting some common sense into the problem. As a businessman, you nailed it. And you were one. For a while in my life I was a small businessman. You've got to know what's around the corner. You can't hire somebody if there's unknown around the corner. Because when you hire them, you get around the corner, you might have to fire them because that unknown is going to make it to where it's not profitable for you to have this person who you hope will make your business more profitable. They would make it less profitable. People don't seem to understand around here. They think people hire people because somebody gives them a tax incentive or there's some incentive. Somebody gives them a little extra money this month. No, you hire someone to make your business more profitable. It's about prospering in your business. If you don't need somebody to prosper your business, you're not going to hire them. And all of the incentives in the world aren't going to make you hire somebody that doesn't make your business work. Whether you're a little bitty business or the biggest business in the world, that's the way it works. So the reality is, as they plan--and, you know, there was a time, I read an article on this, there was a time when business planning was relatively short term. In fact, one of the things that came out of the Great Depression was the concept of long-term planning, both short- term, mid-term, and long-term planning for a businessman because you needed to know not only what was around the next 2 years, or the next 5 years. You needed to know around at least the next 10 years. That's one of the reasons why when we have these tax bills that we have passed that will just end on a certain day, well, if you know it's going to end, you have to plan around it. You plan to avoid it, but when that drop-dead date comes up like we've got on the Bush tax cuts they call them around here, businessmen are looking at those and asking: What's that going to mean to my bottom line? I don't know, so I'm not hiring. I'm not expanding my business. I'm not building a building because I don't know what that means. Unknown regulations in the minds of regulators could change my world, could absolutely shake my world. So this--and right at this time in this economy, when the number one thing you hear from every businessman you talk to is the unknown, whether it be the new financial regulations which have made financing unknown, whether it be the hidden tax increases in the health care bill, or whether it be regulations that we don't understand that we were surprised to get, we don't know what's going to happen, so we're not doing anything. We're sitting with our hands in our pockets, hope there's a little money in those pockets while we sit there, and we're not doing anything until we know what is going on. That's why this moratorium is perfect--perfect.

Mr. CARTER. I thank the gentleman from Kentucky for the work you've done on the REINS Act. This is a good bill. This needs to be passed by Congress. I hope that our colleagues over on the Senate sides, when they grab ahold of this, get excited about it and realize that regulations impose more burdens on the American people than this Congress does. In many instances, they come to us and say--Why did you pass this law that puts this burden on us?--when the real issue is they don't understand that it was done by regulations, by people who were not elected, unlike the Members here. We have to answer to our boss, and our boss is the American people. Unfortunately, with regard to these regulations done by the executive branch agencies, I guess the only boss they have to answer to is the President. In many instances, they're even independent of the President. Some of these regulations are not thought out in the real world. They're, in fact, thought out in the minds of somebody who sits at a desk and just thinks, This has got to be a good idea. Sometimes these good ideas overwhelm us in costs and, quite frankly, interfere with our lives. So we've been talking about this. The American people are talking about it. When you go home, they want to know, What are you going to do about allowing the businesspeople to have an idea of what the playing field is going to look like? because these regulations are changing the rules every time we look up. This leads us into what, I think, is another excellent piece of legislation that I'm proud to be a part of. My friend from Wisconsin (Mr. Ribble) is the actual originator of this bill, and I jumped on it with him because I thought it was a good idea. So I'm going to yield to my friend and let him have a chance to explain this to you and what his idea was and why we both got into this mess of trying to make it clear for those who would make our economy grow, just exactly what the playing field looks like.

Mr. CARTER. Let me point out that the $1.75 trillion is more than the entire income tax for that year that was collected by this country. So, when you talk about a burden, it's more than the entire tax burden of our Nation for that year.

Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time, you just said a magic word that I want to repeat--``responsibility.'' Our Founders designed our form of government so that we defined rights in our Bill of Rights, but it also points out where the responsibility lies. And I would argue that these creations of regulatory acts, it allows people to avoid being responsible. They pass a law in Congress for the timber industry, and they give the authority to a branch of the executive to write rules to implement that legislation, and it allows this Congress to hide from those regulations. It's one of the reasons I've been talking up here for a year and a half now about regulations. We all know our rights. It's time for those of us who have accepted a position of responsibility to be responsible. And when an unknown bureaucrat in a cubbyhole somewhere in the vast jungle of offices in this town can write a regulation that affects the very lives of American citizens--and he's going to get his paycheck. Nobody elected him. He's not going to get fired. You don't get run off for writing that regulation. He has been assigned to do rules and regulations. He doesn't take responsibility for it. He's hiding as a bureaucrat back there as civil servant. It's time for the Congress to step back up, based on the Articles of the Constitution that you just read, and take our responsibility. And then those of us who answer to the people every 2 years and every 6 years--they're our bosses. They're the people who have hired us for this job. And when they have one of these regulations, they have somebody they can go to and say, You need to be responsible for implementing the regulatory moratorium and for stopping these regulations. They are killing us. Let me just give you some examples real quickly that we've gathered on just some stuff that--these are current events. This is like looking back at current events for the last 6 or 8 months. EPA greenhouse gas regulations, the potential job loss as a result of those regulations, 1.4 million jobs; new utility regulations, 1.4 million jobs; offshore oil and gas lease delays, 504,000 jobs; offshore drilling permitorium--they say they are going to introduce permits, but then they just don't ever get right around to doing it--430,000 jobs; reclassification of coal ash as hazardous--it affects this area right here--316,000 jobs; the new boiler regs that are coming out, 60,000 jobs; the Alaska drilling delays, 57,000 jobs; the new cement kiln regulations, 15,000 jobs. Just that little block adds up to 4,182,000 jobs that regulations are going to add to the unemployment rolls at a time when we have got unemployment at 9 percent. And, by the way, I like the concept that you introduced and explained to me: Go back to what the unemployment was at the time that this administration came into being, 7.8 percent. I think that's more than reasonable.

Mr. CARTER. And when the American people hear that once again we've got over 20 bills that could have done something to turn this economy around that have been tabled, I hope they will ask themselves, Why did the Senate table my job? Because everything's about jobs. When you table a piece of legislation, you're tabling somebody's job. One of the things that a lot of people don't understand--and that's just because they don't think about it; once they start thinking about it, they can understand it--that they hear something like the pipeline. I happen to have spent every summer of my life from the time I was 15 until I graduated from law school working on pipelines. I have worked on pipelines in Texas, Louisiana, and overseas in the Netherlands in Europe, and in Belgium. So I'm an old laborer on the pipeline. When you hear ``pipeline,'' you think the pipeline of the pipeline. But the number of people involved in laying a pipeline and the number of assorted jobs you don't even think about that are involved in that are overwhelming. In many instances, you've got to cut roads out to where the pipeline is going to be. So you've got road builders involved, you've got gravel haulers, and in some instances asphalt layers, if the farmer will let you. You've got the pipe. The pipe industry is making pipe. The welders are welding the joints. The people that are surveying are surveying the project. The heavy machinery is digging the ditch. Many individuals are cleaning the ditch with hand shovels because it's got to be a certain way, or you get a process which can cause the pipe to have an electrical charge on it. Engineers are engineering it; scientists are studying it. The product that's going to flow down that pipeline is being tested so that you see what stress levels you're going to have. It creates jobs, not just a pipe; but there are hundreds and hundreds of industries that are tied to just laying a pipeline. If you're drilling an oil well, the same thing. Those offshore drill rigs, you know who got hurt bad on that? The guys that feed those people out there on those rigs and the helicopter pilots that fly the food out there. I mean, it shut down restaurants and closed down helicopter businesses in the gulf coast when we had the moratorium. We forget those little guys that are providing those services for the big ExxonMobil or some other platform out there. But in reality, there's thousands of small businesses connected to any major project like that. A minimum number of jobs for that construction on the pipeline, it's been estimated, is 25,000 jobs. I can tell you, unless the world has changed a whole lot since I was a kid, it's the best-paying job for a laborer that I could find in the State of Texas for a kid my age. I worked until I was 26 years old on those things in the summertime, and it still was the best-paying part- time job I could find anywhere in the State of Texas, or even better, in Europe. So the point being that there is a domino effect when there is a big project like this, or the lumber industry you were describing in your State, or the shipping industry on the Great Lakes. It's not just ships that are involved in the shipping industry. It's hundreds of other professions that are involved in the shipping industry. And when we start thinking about that concept, when you go out and hit the big guy--people around this country have got this idea that big guys, big things are bad, and they don't realize that it takes hundreds and sometimes thousands of little guys to keep the big guy's project going. They're all making a living and they're all raising their families and having their homes based upon that project. This is the concept of what capitalism does and free enterprise does for our country. And when the regulators stop something like that pipeline, or when they put a moratorium on it until after the election so you don't have to talk about it during election time, that hurts little guys as well as big guys. And it's a wrong concept. We've got to make this country once again prosper, and it takes a lot of things to make it prosper. So we're just asking for the government not to be one of the hindrances. And I think that's what makes this a great bill. We're just about out of time. I want to thank you for joining me and explaining the bill and allowing me to be an original cosponsor with you on this bill so we can work this together. I will do everything within my power to assist you in getting this bill to this floor and passed through this House; and hopefully Senator Johnson will get it done over in the Senate, and we'll help him where we can. And it will be good for America to say time out, time out on these regulations. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We're all glad to be back in the capital city to talk about the regulations that are drowning our country, and we have got some legislation that's going to try to do something about that. I see that some of my colleagues are here to join me in talking about these things. I've been on the floor of this House now for the last 18 months explaining to people how these regulations are killing jobs in this country. And really what it cuts down to what we need to turn this country around, we don't need big stimulus spending. That didn't work. We tried that. We don't need the government to tell us how to run our business. We need the people to be able to run their business with the government getting out of the way. And so we have today several bills that we think are going to be very important to tell us just exactly how we can make sense out of this overwhelming amount of regulations. Thousands of regulations just this year have been proposed, many of which will kill hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country. I have two of my colleagues that are here. I will first recognize my friend from Kentucky--I think he has somewhere to go--to tell us a little bit about a solution that he has proposed.

Mr. CARTER

Mr. CARTER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 298, a bill that would designate the United States Post Office located at 500 East Whitestone Boulevard in Cedar Park, Texas, as the Army Specialist Matthew Troy Morris Post Office Building. Mr. Speaker, I have the high honor of representing the brave men and women of Fort Hood, Texas, the largest military installation in the world. Every day that I have the opportunity to serve in Congress, I do so knowing that my number one responsibility is to give our men and women in uniform the support and resources they need to be successful. Each time I visit Fort Hood, I see America's finest--the soldiers who put it all on the line to allow us to live in the greatest country on Earth. Only 3 days ago, we celebrated Veterans Day, a somber reminder that freedom is not free. And today, here on the House floor, we remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country, another reminder to all of us that freedom is not free. Representing Fort Hood, Texas, also comes with the sober reminder of the sacrifice that our young men and women in the military and their families make to the cause of freedom. Since September 11, 2001, 384 Army soldiers have been killed in action from the 31st District in Texas, the highest number of any congressional district in the country. Central Texans and their families have sacrificed much and know that freedom is not free. Today, we celebrate the life and remember one of those patriots who served our country and gave his all, Army Specialist Matthew Troy Morris. Matthew Morris was born on July 16, 1984, in Fairfax, Virginia. He attended Fishburne Military School in Waynesboro, Virginia, where he earned an ROTC leadership award. He later attended Cedar Park High School in Cedar Park, Texas, and went on to score in the 90th percentile on each section of the General Education Development test. Specialist Morris enlisted in the United States Army in December 2005 and attended basic combat training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, followed by advanced individual training at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. He graduated from AIT in June of 2006 as a power generation equipment mechanic and was assigned to Howitzer Battery, 2nd Squadron, and the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment at Fort Hood, Texas. Specialist Morris served with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division in Balad. Despite the dangerous nature of this work, he remained devoted to his mission; and the heroism he demonstrated in Iraq earned him the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon, and Combat Action Ribbon. Matthew Troy Morris was killed on April 6, 2008, when his vehicle encountered a makeshift bomb in Balad, Iraq. Matthew was only 23 years old. He is the oldest of four children, leaving behind Cory, Katie and Sam. Matthew's parents are Lisa and Glenn Morris of Cedar Park, Texas. His father, Glenn, served our country in the Vietnam war, and we should thank him for his service. Matthew was engaged to be married to Ms. Julia Richardson. He is survived by his grandparents, Nancy Jackson and Joane Walters; his aunt, Diane Afflerbach; and uncles John and Brian Walters. The sacrifice our military families make often goes unnoticed, and I would like the entire Morris family to know that we will never forget Matthew and the pain that they have endured at his loss. Our country and this House have not forgotten Matthew, and we are proud to celebrate his life on this day. Matthew Morris exemplified the highest ideals of the United States Armed Forces. And although his passing left a void in the lives of those who were fortunate enough to know him, they will forever carry the memories of this heroic young man close to their hearts. Mr. Speaker, I urge the passage of H.R. 298 and ask my colleagues to join in honoring an American patriot and hero, Army Specialist Matthew Troy Morris of Cedar Park, Texas. On Saturday, I was at the dedication of the Veterans Memorial in Cedar Park, which holds the likeness of this young specialist, and there were hundreds of citizens--probably 500 people--there to celebrate that memorial.