Paul Gosar

Mr. GOSAR

Mr. GOSAR. William Dean Wilson. Does my friend have any further comments?

Mr. GOSAR. Harry Tsosie.

Mr. GOSAR. Frank Danny Pete.

Mr. GOSAR. Lloyd Oliver.

Mr. GOSAR. Chester Nez.

Mr. GOSAR. Johnny R. Manuelito.

Mr. GOSAR. Allen Dale June.

Mr. GOSAR. Carl N. Gorman.

Mr. GOSAR. George H. Dennison.

Mr. GOSAR. David Curley.

Mr. GOSAR. Benjamin Cleveland.

Mr. GOSAR. John Brown, Jr.

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Speaker, thank you for joining me this evening to talk about a very special group of veterans, the Navajo Code Talkers. Tonight, my colleagues and I are going to share their stories and highlight the amazing accomplishments of this group of warriors. Their contribution to the Allied effort during World War II is widely credited with winning the Battle of Iwo Jima and making majors gains in the Pacific. During the early months of World War II, Japanese intelligence experts broke every code the U.S. forces devised. The Japanese were able to decode and intercept communications with ease. To combat this, increasingly complex codes were initiated that sometimes took hours at a time simply to decipher one message. Guadalcanal in 1942 was a turning point for the Allied military forces, who realized that the military communications needed a new direction, and new inspiration. Fortunately, an innovative citizen named Philip Johnston had the answer. As the son of a Protestant missionary, Johnston had grown up on the Navajo reservation and was one of less than 30 non-Navajos fluent in the unique Navajo language. He realized that since it had no alphabet and was almost impossible to master without early exposure, the Navajo language was a perfect choice to form a new, impenetrable military code. In 1942, Johnston completed an impressive demonstration of the Navajo language to the Commanding General of the Pacific fleet headquartered in San Diego. He was then given permission to begin a pilot for the Navajo Code Talker program, and I would like to submit his letter dated March 8, 1942, for the Record. Headquarters, Amphibious Force, Pacific Fleet, Camp Elliott, San Diego, CA, March 6, 1942 Subject: Enlistment of Navaho Indians. To: The Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps. Enclosures: (A) Brochure by Mr. Philip Johnston, with maps. (B) Messages used in demonstration. 1. Mr. Philip Johnston of Los Angeles recently offered his services to this force to demonstrate the use of Indians for the transmission of messages by telephone and voice-radio. His offer was accepted and the demonstration was held for the Commanding General and his staff. 2. The demonstration was interesting and successful. Messages were transmitted and received almost verbatim. In conducting the demonstration messages were written by a member of the staff and handed to the Indian; he would transmit the message in his tribal dialect and the Indian on the other end would write them down in English. The text of messages as written and received are enclosed. The Indians do not have many military terms in their dialect so it was necessary to give than a few minutes, before the demonstration, to improvise words for dive-bombing, anti-tank gun, etc. 3. Mr. Johnston stated that the Navaho is the only tribe in the United States that has not been infested with German students during the past twenty years. These Germans, studying the various tribal dialects under the guise of art students, anthropologists, etc., have undoubtedly attained a good working knowledge of all tribal dialects except Navaho. For this reason the Navaho is the only tribe available offering complete security for the type of work under consideration. It is noted in Mr. Johnston's article (enclosed) that the Navaho is the largest tribe but the lowest in literacy. He stated, however, that 1,000--if that many were needed--could be found with the necessary qualifications. It should also be noted that the Navaho tribal dialect is completely unintelligible to all other tribes and all other people, with the possible exception of as many as 28 Americans who have made a study of the dialect. This dialect is thus equivalent to a secret code to the enemy, and admirably suited for rapid, secure communication. 4. It is therefore recommended that an effort be made to enlist 200 Navaho Indians for this force. In addition to linguistic qualifications in English and their tribal dialect they should have the physical qualifications for messengers. Clayton B. Vogel, Commanding General. Their elite unit was formed in early 1942 when the first of the 29 Navajo Code Talkers were recruited by Johnston. The code was modified and improved throughout the war, but it is so important to note that these 29 Navajo heroes came up with the original code themselves. Accordingly, they are often referred to reverently as the ``original 29.'' We will have the honor of reading their names a bit later this evening. Many of these enlistees were just boys with little exposure to the world outside of the Navajo reservation. After the war, it was discovered that recruits as young as 15 and as old as 35 years of age had enlisted. In fact, a few of these men traveled to other towns on the reservation, outside their clan where no one knew them and their true age, in order to enlist underage and serve their country. After sailing through basic training, the Navajo Code Talkers were sent to Marine divisions in the Pacific theater of World War II. Their reputation as innovators soon spread far and wide amongst their commanding officers. In the field, they were not allowed to write any part of the code down as a reference. In fact, the code existed only amongst this small group. Under high pressure battle conditions, the Code Talkers had to quickly recall their code accurately, or risk hundreds or thousands of lives. Make no mistake about the gravity of this accomplishment. The Navajo Code Talkers created the only unbroken code in modern military history. It baffled the Japanese forces. It was even indecipherable to a Navajo soldier taken prisoner and tortured on Bataan. The secret code created by the Navajo Code Talkers was a simple marvel of linguistic invention. It contained native terms that were associated with specialized or commonly used military language, as well as native terms that represented letters in the alphabet. English words with no Navajo translation were spelled out using the Navajo alphabet. The selection of a given term was based on the first letter of the English meaning of the Navajo word. For words that did not translate into Navajo, the Code Talkers created code that did not directly translate, but tended to resemble the things with which they are associated. For example, the Navajo word for ``iron fish'' represented submarine. I could give many more examples, but I think that one is particularly poignant. To say ``America,'' the Code Talkers used the word ``ne-he-mah,'' which means ``our mother.'' This brilliant code allowed our U.S. Marines to communicate quickly and accurately. The Code Talkers' brave work is widely credited with successes of battle in the Pacific and, more ultimately, with helping to end this tragic war. In the battle for Iwo Jima, in the first 48 hours alone they coded over 800 transmissions with perfect accuracy. While the true heroism of these brave warriors is known today, sadly, the Code Talkers had to return home after the war without the heroes' welcome they deserved. Ironically, the code was such a precious asset to the U.S. military that it was classified and had to be kept secret. While the code was declassified in 1968, it took years to properly decorate those veterans. In 2001, nearly 60 years after they created their legendary code, the Navajo Code Talkers finally received their well-deserved Congressional Medals of Honor. Today, only one original Code Talker remains, but the tradition lives on. A delegation of the Four Corners States will attempt to recognize these warriors one by one and give us their thoughts during this hour. I would like to first recognize my good friend from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

Mr. GOSAR. Wilsie Bitsie.

Mr. GOSAR

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Speaker, 10,000 older Americans are entering the Medicare system every day, so access to quality physicians is more important than ever. The sad fact is we are not paying our Medicare providers enough to keep their doors open, much less accept new patients. In usual Washington fashion, past Congresses have kicked the can down the road; and if we don't act before the end of the year, physicians will face a 27 percent cut in their Medicare reimbursement. We need to come together and find a better method to pay our Medicare physicians for the long term and include it in a properly thought-out health care reform. If we continue to allow these flawed policies, Medicare patients will suffer, and we owe our seniors better. Our seniors were made promises by those that came before us serving you today, and I'm here to tell you that we will keep those promises. Taking up this important fix to health care before it's too late will allow us to continue to be the best Nation, a healthy Nation that we can be proud to leave our children and our grandchildren.

Mr. GOSAR

Mr. GOSAR. Dr. Fleming, thank you so very much for organizing this hour and being able to have a fireside chat with the American public about health care and what really is coming about and what actually is going on with a broken health care system. I also want to take the time to educate, to understand--have the American people understand what it is about a vibrant economy that actually helps our Medicare system. Now, I know the holidays are coming up and we're going to be discussing giving a continuation of a tax holiday for many Americans, about the thousand dollars for an individual on their FICA, on their withholding tax, and to employers; but I also want to take the time to explain to the American public that there is a cost involved here. And part of that cost when a withholding tax is taken out goes into Social Security and partly to Medicare, and part of this is particularly Medicare part A, the hospitalization act, which is the closest one to insolvency of all parts of Medicare. Now, we lost 5 years, particularly on Medicare part A, the hospitalization act, just from the years of 2010. We have yet to start looking at the disastrous parts of the economy to 2011 to be added into the insolvency. But what ends up happening is this takes a further hit in the numbers and amount of money that is actually part of the equation for our seniors in Medicare, so it's going to get worse before it gets better. And when you couple that with this administration taking--I call it stealing--over $500 billion away from the current Medicare program to build another entitlement, that's just not right. I came into Congress because I was concerned about health care. As a dentist, I love seeing a smiling face, because a smiling face tells me something about vibrancy, about health, and participating in the greatest things that this life gives us. But it also tells me that it has to be a participating sport and that what we have to have is a patient taking care of and being involved actively in the choices and decision processes in their health care, and that's what I want to see. I'm flabbergasted, to be honest with you, that we see a program rectifying Medicare, or attempting to, through ObamaCare, but then we leave the SGR fix or the physician fix completely separate. It doesn't make sense to the average person why these aren't all integrated and part of the same equation. I also want to remind the American people, this is not an easy solution. We didn't get here overnight, because we didn't do our due diligence like we had talked about earlier. We didn't change with the times as we grew older. We changed our participation and age and the variables that we had. We also enveloped technology, unbelievable things that no one in 1965 could have even imagined, they could have dreamed but couldn't have actually imagined. And that's what the other part is is that we also have to look--I come from a very rural district, and what is happening back in my neck of the woods is the primary care doc who was that gatekeeper, they're no longer around. They either are associated with a hospital or a federally qualified health center--if you can get them to see you. And that's the part that also makes me tell the American public we have got another problem. You were involved in this Joint Committee that had Democrats and Republicans, 12 of them, trying to figure out some type of a debt solution for $1.2 trillion. I want to remind the American people there's another consequence in this, not only to our military, but to our health care providers as well, because the sequestration, when it goes through, is also going to tap, once again, the providers who are no longer being able to afford to see patients, and our hospitals, particularly those rural hospitals that will be going out of business. So there won't be an access to care. We won't have the ability to be a part of our own health care because there won't be a health care provider out there. This is the dynamics that we have to look at. This is the equation that is so immense. What I have always said is start a little bit at a time. Make sure that the playing field is level and all of the participants are actually there, increasing the competition, making sure the public health and the private health are all in balance, and then making sure we have some tort reform. We have to have that. That was absolutely missing within this health care system. That is what we are going to have to get back to. And we're going to have to have sunset clauses that we reactivate and reevaluate each of the process as our aging population gets older and as our technology gets better and there are new advances in medicine. We have to empower people to be part of their health care solution and empowering them to get back with their physician and their health care system. That's what we need to do. And that's the most vibrant aspect that I can challenge our seniors with. We're here for Medicare. We're here to change Medicare in the right way. We're here to change it for you

Mr. GOSAR

Mr. GOSAR. Madam Speaker, I stand here today with my colleagues to support the dedication of a meeting room in the Capitol Visitors Center to Gabe Zimmerman, a man known for seeking to bring healthy political discourse through civil service. I would first like to reaffirm my condolences to Gabe's family and loved ones for their loss. He will be missed. Both a devoted congressional aide and a community leader, Gabe served Congresswoman Gabby Giffords' district with a smile and a willingness to go above and beyond in assisting both his office and his fellow citizens. With an extroverted personality and a deep concern for others' well-being, Congresswoman Giffords has noted that Zimmerman became the go-to person for constituents in the district. He was what you call back home ``good people.'' We can all appreciate and learn from Gabe that representing our citizens means going beyond what is asked of us to assist them. Gabe Zimmerman lived this mantra day by day. It is with great respect that I support this bill to dedicate this place of meeting in honor of a man who lost his life through a senseless act of violence. I join the Arizona delegation in hoping that his sacrifice and the principles of his public service are remembered and honored by all of those who seek to make our Nation a better place.

Mr. GOSAR

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, I find it very interesting that my opponent, or our opponent on the other side, actually focuses a picture of Apache Leap, which is specifically excluded from this legislation. Therefore, when we talk about, in regards to protecting the sites, we have done so. As far as the consultation is concerned, we have done consultations.

Mr. GOSAR. That is Apache Leap.

Mr. GOSAR. The point of reference is that we cite all the Native tribes. They are far from being in unison. In fact, during our conversation within the Resources Committee, former tribal chairman and 16-year tribal Councilman Harrison Talgo testified that the traditional Apache values are not mutually exclusive with economic development. Given that the San Carlos Apache is one of the most impoverished tribes in the Nation, with unemployment rates around 70 percent and poverty affecting every facet of tribal members' life, I couldn't agree more with Mr. Talgo. Mr. Talgo also points out that Oak Flat, the campground in question, is a long way from the reservation. He also pointed out the majority of tribal members he speaks about in this project support this project.

Mr. GOSAR. I thank the chairman for yielding. My legislation shows you can protect the land and the water and have a strong economy with good jobs. The land exchange will bring into Federal stewardship 5,500 acres of high-priority conservation lands in exchange for the third largest undeveloped copper deposit in the world. I'd like to speak about one in particular. The 7B Ranch, located in Pinal County, Arizona, is 3,073 acres designated by the Nature Conservancy as one of the last great places on Earth. And the Forest Service testified that this property was ``priceless''--and you will get a chance to see some of them. This area is home to a free-flowing artesian spring-fed wetland populated by lowland leopard frogs, nesting birds, and native fish. In addition, this parcel is recognized by BirdLife International as an ``important bird area.'' These are amazing sites. These have ``priceless'' as their connotation.

Mr. GOSAR. I rise today in support of my legislation, H.R. 1904, the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act, legislation that will create new American jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy and minerals, protect high-profile conservation lands, and generate revenue for Federal and State treasuries. In this time of serious economic hardship, Congress must engage in serious debate over serious issues. What should not guide Congress is an endless game of unfounded attacks that lead to trumped-up fear- mongering to gain political advantage, particularly, in this case, the fear of robots. This legislation is a real job creator. I would like to tell a story about Chris Astor, a current employee at the mine site and a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. Chris grew up attending public schools on the San Carlos Apache Reservation and graduated from high school in nearby Globe. In 2010, Chris was among those in the first group of the Resolution Experience participants--a paid 3-week program Resolution launched in the summer of 2010 to introduce potential employees to the world of mining. Each participant receives a Mining Safety and Health Administration-certified training and then is exposed to the various work disciplines within Resolution Copper. Following this 3-week program, many of the program participants are hired by the company or its contractors. Among the hired employees was Chris Astor. Chris is one of seven San Carlos Apaches who have been hired by Resolution Copper or its contractor since the program began in the summer of 2010. Chris now works as a core handler--one of a seven- member crew that retrieves drill core samples from the rigs that do the project. I've had the blessing of doing this in my own life for my dad. Under the guidance of geologists, the core handlers log, process, and archive core samples with geologists and mine engineers helping them to rely on and understand the nature of the ore body. ``I would like to eventually try different jobs, get a broader view, learn and grow into a supervisory role,'' Chris says. ``I also want to be trained to work underground.'' Prior to the Resolution Experience, Chris worked at the Pinto Valley copper mine, an open-pit mine a few miles northeast of Resolution Projects, which is owned by BHP-Billiton. However, this mine is currently closed. Before joining Resolution Experience, Chris had been out of work for more than a year. Chris is now a 31-year-old father of three children, ages 13, 9, and 5. With his stable, good-paying job, including great medical and benefits, Chris is able to confidently support his family. ``I can take care of my kids better and provide what they need--and sometimes even what they want,'' he says. Life was not always good for Chris. He grew up as an only child raised by his mother and grandparents. He spent most of his childhood on the reservation. ``We went where my mom could find work,'' he says. ``I never knew my dad.'' Chris feels fortunate to have a job and to live on the reservation, where more than 80 percent of the residents live in poverty and seven out of 10 eligible workers are unemployed. It is true that modern mining technology uses high-tech equipment to accomplish certain tasks. This is done for efficiency's sake and for the sake of worker safety. Mining is a potentially hazardous task and certainly a difficult one that must be done with precision. Chris is not a robot. You can still see there is a need for people to run the mine, to drive the trucks, to feed the workers, to drill the holes, to engineer the dig, to build the structures, to process the minerals, and, yes, build, maintain and control technology. Chris is a real human being operating this technology already at the site whose life has benefited greatly from this project. If we pass this legislation, over 3,700 more success stories like Chris's will come to fruition. I urge my colleagues to continue this debate with serious discussions about the facts about this bill, not scare tactics.

Mr. GOSAR. No, I will not yield.

Mr. GOSAR

Mr. GOSAR. That's absurd. I've gone into the mine. I have actually seen the company. I've actually seen the work forces in here. I've actually gone down to the bottom of the mine. I got suited up and have been part of that. That's not appropriate.

Mr. GOSAR. You're talking about robots. What I am talking about is trust. Trust is a series of promises kept. And what we see is right here in this picture. We have over 500 jobs that have been established here. We have seen the investment of this company in the local communities helping job creators, as far as truckers, independent construction organizations, trying to stay in business because, as you saw before, this is Superior, Arizona. This is what we've done to Main Street America. You see all the boarded up streets, all the buildings that are here. What they've done is come in and established trust because what they've done is actually put people back to work. You talk about robots, but what I'm talking about is trust, which is actually what's happening on the ground.