Scott Perry

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. I agree with you on your assessment. I hope you are right about that. I hope you are right, that we accomplish something. It would be great if it wasn't partisan, if we could just do the right thing and allow people who have agreed to serve and take the oath to uphold and defend the Constitution to then have the same protections of that Constitution availed to themselves. And that would be, in my opinion, the right thing to do regardless--regardless--of your party. So I would hope that we would see that now, see that as a solution set to--look, on this current case, it appears that when confronted with a firearm, this individual who carried out this most recent crime and these atrocities at Fort Hood, when confronted with a firearm himself, that is when the carnage ended. So it seems to me that maybe it won't stop it, but it certainly can mitigate it, and maybe if these folks in the future that would ponder such an act, if they knew that other members on post would be carrying, as well, they might be reluctant to do the same thing.

Mr. PERRY. I do not. And I thank you for asking. But just thinking about it, the process by which a person joins and maintains the attendance, so to speak, in the military requires an investigation of your person, of your background, who you are, your capabilities, and so on and so forth. And for an administration, rightly so, very concerned about background checks and making sure that only those in our free country avail themselves of their Second Amendment right and not those who shouldn't, such as criminals, who would also not be allowed to either join the military or stay in the military, once again, I would say, there is no safer, no better a place than on a military base because all those folks have been vetted, have been checked, do carry a weapon. So I find it interesting that maybe the military, maybe DOD has made a recommendation to the administration and said, part of the solution to Nidal Hasan and his heinous acts are to make sure that people can defend themselves, soldiers, servicemembers at different bases and different branches of the services can protect themselves under force of arms, if necessary, on base. But that has yet to be found out. But it would be very interesting to know if DOD did make that recommendation and nothing was done about it, and nothing was done about it. If there was no cry from the administration to say, hey, Congress, this is a problem. Here is part of the solution set. Get to work. As you said, we have already gotten to work on that here. But I suspect that that bill--well-intentioned, the right thing to do--will make it out of the House in due course but under this Senate and under this administration will languish. That is what my suspicion will be.

Mr. PERRY. Certainly you and I can both attest to this. It is a sensitive, it is a controlled item. And from day one, you learn the very harsh reality that you do not ever, ever misplace your weapon. There are very serious penalties for misplacing your weapon. You learn to live with it, to sleep with it, to shower with it. It is you, and you are it. You are together at all times and all things. And accountability is paramount. That is what I mean. There can be no breach of this standard. And there is none. And the military trains you in that very acutely. So, once again, I would say, there is no place where individuals--men and women--are more familiar, better trained, and more well equipped to deal with firearms than in the military, especially--specifically on a military base.

Mr. PERRY. Who is better trained than the United States military, the different branches serving on those bases and posts all around the country, all around the world, dealing with weapons on a daily basis, dealing with ammunition and its effects on a daily basis? Most of what you do revolves around ranges, firing, qualifications because we train. Readiness is important, and using the tools of the trade; whether you like it or not, they are weapons, because there are bad actors out there. And that is what they have to use to be able to fight back. So that is the one place, specifically the one place on the planet where you would think that people would be able to. As you said, they are trained, are prepared, are knowledgeable, are familiar, are comfortable with. And yet this United States Government does not allow them to defend themselves and, more importantly, the oath and the very Constitution, the set of rules with which we govern this Nation. When you raise your right hand and take that solemn oath, unfortunately under the current paradigm, under this current administration, when you take the oath to join the military, you are giving away the right to defend yourself while you are on a military base.

Mr. PERRY. Well, as an officer, I qualified with a .9 millimeter, but of course everybody qualifies at some point M16, or an M4 now.

Mr. PERRY. First I want to say thank you for your service as a Member of this body who has also served his Nation in uniform. Thank you, and how well you know and what you just spoke of. I found it fascinating, on my most recent deployment to Iraq--it has been years now--we were mobilized to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I am sure you know it well. So you carry your weapon around with you 24 hours a day in your training because you must always be prepared, except--this is the fascinating part--except when you go to the PX, except when you go to the chow hall. Then you must find a place for your weapon. You must leave a soldier out in the parking lot to guard all the weapons, or what have you. And I am thinking to myself: Here I am, a commander of this task force. I have got men and women of all ages and all different backgrounds, and we are training and refining ourselves to go to war, to fight the enemy, to defend our Nation in arms, wearing your ballistic vest and all your gear, wearing a ballistic helmet so that if you do get shot, you are protected from that fire. But yet I am not trusted to carry my firearm on a military base. So what we have seen during this administration is this horrific incident, the previous one with Nidal Hasan, and nothing has really changed. And now we see a repeat of it. Meanwhile, soldiers--men and women who are willing and ready to serve their country--are left defenseless and can't even turn to their own Constitution, which they take an oath to uphold and defend to protect them. I find it the height of the dereliction of duty of this body and of this administration.

Mr. PERRY. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. So based on this, how should our great ally Israel--how should the people of Israel view us, knowing that this is happening and knowing that no one outside these four walls right now is talking about this? How should they view us?

Mr. PERRY. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. PERRY. Madam Speaker, many people that each of us meet as Representatives in our home district say that things are wrong with Washington, and they give us a list. Of course, one of the big things is the misspending of their money, and they are right. They say: Why aren't you doing something about it? Oftentimes, the answer is: look, it is complicated, we have a House of Representatives, we have a Senate, and we don't always agree, and then we have to get the President to sign something. On this occasion, something can be done; it is just not being done. In April 2011, the Palestinian Authority registry published a government resolution granting all Palestinian prisoners imprisoned in Israel for security and terror-related offenses a monthly salary from the authority--a monthly salary, like a job. Imagine if your job was to blow up people, tear their limbs off, and send hot pieces of metal through their bodies and watch their bloody corpses being dragged through the street. If that was your job, you would get a salary for that. Who in America pays--we put people in prison for that, we put people to death for that; yet American taxpayers are paying people overseas to do just that. Words mean things. They pay a salary. The Authority defined eligible beneficiaries as anyone imprisoned in Israel's prison as a result of his participation in the struggle against the occupation, as is already stated, the occupation; again, words mean things. I wonder, people complain, and they call it an occupation of the Palestinian lands. Let's remember who attacked Israel. I wonder if the war had ended inside of Israel's borders, if the attackers would have given Israel's borders back. I wonder, but I doubt they would have. Words mean things. So if you are involved at all in this struggle, in this fight, in this killing, you get a salary. Now, according to the Palestinian Authority's definition, as was already stated, more than 4,500 Palestinian prisoners, as of December 2012, serving time for terror-related offenses are recipients of these salaries. This means that Palestinians convicted of crimes such as theft do not receive a salary. However, Hamas and Fatah prisoners receive hefty payments--hefty. According to the regulation and economic reports on government salaries, the monthly salaries to these prisoners range from $680 to $3,400 a month. Who couldn't use $3,400, especially at tax time? Yet we are sending it to people to kill people, literally. Like many salaries, payments to prisoners follow a sliding scale based on quality--quality of work. If your work is murdering other people, as Mr. Weber from Texas already stated, the more murder, the more mayhem, the higher the salary. It is unfathomable to us as Americans. This is happening, and there is a few of us on the floor, but where is the rest of the Federal Government, Madam Speaker? Where is the Senate? Where is our President? Where is the Secretary of State? He knows this is happening, but it is us folks on the floor that are talking about it. He is not saying a word. In this world, the more heinous the act of terrorism, the greater the salary; the more violent the terrorist act, the longer the Israeli prison sentence and, in turn, the higher the monthly compensation-- compensation for killing, so we are hiring hit men. American tax dollars are hiring hit men and hit women, and the policy literally incentivizes terrorism. In May of 2009, GAO issued a report on this very subject, the Government Accountability Office. This is not Perry's rules; it is not Yoho's statistics. It is the GAO. The report explained: The U.S. Government is one of the largest donors to the Palestinians. One of the largest donors. Yet the GAO found incomplete compliance with even the minimal paperwork requirements for vetting procedures. So we are giving them a pile of money, and as usual with the Federal Government, we are not checking up on them. We have no idea what they are spending it on. Well, we just found out, right? We just found out. In many cases, it seems Federal agencies and offices merely went through the motions without proper vetting--so surprising. It is shocking to me that U.S. taxpayer dollars have been indirectly used to pay Palestinian terrorists' salaries. Let me explain the indirectly part of it because it amounts to this year--this fiscal year--$440 million. $17 trillion in debt. Annual deficits for the last 5-6 years averaging about a trillion dollars; yet we are happy to hand away $440 million and some of which--a great deal of which is used to kill people. So the Congress allocates that money to the Department of State. The Department of State then allocates a portion of that money to USAID, who then gives it to the Palestinian Authority general budget, which is extremely fungible, which means the first dollar or the last dollar-- the dollars don't care--of the $440 million, we are spending about $60 million--well, someone is--the Palestinian Authority's paying $60 million to these terrorists in salaries. $60 million of that $440 million is going to terrorists' salaries. Now, I wonder how much we spent tracking down Nidal Hassan and convicting him. How much time did we spend? What about those victims? How much time, energy, and resources did we spend on the Tsarnaev brothers? Terrorism, people that kill other people, yet while we spend American tax dollars to track them down, imprison them--in the case of Nidal Hassan, his rightful punishment, which is the death sentence--on this occasion, we actually pay people to kill our allies and even other Americans. State and Federal Government sanction other nations for this kind of behavior. We sanction them. We say we are not going to give you things, we are going restrict you; yet on this occasion, the Palestinian Authority, we actually pay them. I don't get it. As an American, I don't get it. I wonder too, in this time of executive orders, this is wholly within the purview of the executive branch. There have been many times when people in this House have objected to the executive orders moved on by this administration, but on this occasion, I can't think of one person in this room that would say: oh, no, Mr. President, please don't stop the State Department from giving $440 million to the Palestinian Authority, so they can spend $60 million of hard-earned taxpayer money to pay for criminals that kill people. Yet crickets, Madam Speaker, crickets.

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, recently recorded in political dialogue was a statement about one of my colleagues somehow feeling that his military service ``entitled him to a seat in Congress.'' Mr. Speaker, no one in the military feels that their service entitles them to anything. I am deeply disappointed in the implication that because I served my country, I feel entitled to serve in this esteemed body--or, for that matter, to anything. My colleague didn't pledge an oath of service to God and country because he felt he would get something in return. Mr. Speaker, this type of statement not only is regrettable, reprehensible, and offensive, but it diminishes the sanctity of military service and those who tirelessly and selflessly dedicate themselves to it.

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor thirty-three exceptional young men and women from the 4th Congressional District of Pennsylvania who have been nominated to attend a United States Service Academy. I submit with great pride the following nominations: Nominated to the United States Military Academy--Matthew Benjamin, Jacob Jenkins, Chance King, Sabrina Mortell, Josh Mueller, Graeme Nelson, Zachary Schaeffer, and Tom Snell; Nominated to the United States Naval Academy--Reed Alioth, Dom Antonelli, Bonaire Berry, Tyler Dolmetsch, Joe Fletcher, Matthew Gregoire, Liam Handley, Jacob Jenkins, Ian Johnson, Noah Krechel, Madi Luckenbaugh, Evan Miller, Logan Morris, Josh Mueller, Hayley Murdouh, Seth Murphy-Sweet, Graeme Nelson, Briannah Rohrbaugh, Sarah Sheerin, and Billy Stolkovich; Nominated to the United States Air Force Academy--Hank Anderson, Donny Crabill, Matt Dieffenbach, Steven Foster, Noah Krechel, Marlaina McConville, Darren Miller, Evan Miller, and Natalie Seitz; and Nominated to the United States Merchant Marine Academy--Jon Tarbox. These individuals have distinguished themselves among their peers as leaders who are committed to serving their country in uniform. As these highly motivated and talented young men and women progress through the academy selection process, let us remember and be grateful for the sacrifice they are preparing to make in the name of our country and our citizens. I commend each, and wish them Godspeed in their future endeavors.

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to remove my name as a cosponsor from House Resolution 417.

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. At this time, we are going to talk a little bit about aviation, and Guard aviation in particular, because it is something I have been familiar with since the mid-1980s, when I first went to flight school. It is one of the issues that has become the forefront of this discussion and this argument. Mr. Rothfus noted the drawdown and the cuts to Guard aviation and the claim, or the charge, that the Guard is not trained, accessible, or ready. With that, I just harken back to my short time in Iraq when I served with some of the finest aviators on the planet from Alpha 106 from Indiana, a group of fine people under my command in the task that had been to Iraq, many of them, before. They told me the stories of their time there before. They were just above reproach, and they were the most professional and well-trained individuals that were competent to do the mission from the day they showed up on the ground; and they proved that every single day for a year. With that, I yield to my friend from the great State of Illinois, who also served with those fine individuals from that very company and has sacrificed greatly for our Nation. She would like to discuss this issue as well. Congresswoman Duckworth.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Mississippi for his comments. Again, we are not saying that the Guard and the Reserve aren't willing to do their part. It is my belief, it is this Member's belief, that the DOD and the Chiefs are under significant pressure from the administration to do what they are doing. We are asking for an open process and to be involved in the conversation because we want to do our part. But we can't watch the investments that have been mentioned here today be eviscerated, be thrown away, be cast away like so many things. We understand very clearly over the course of this last 5 years this administration's tenor and attitude towards our Nation's fighting forces, but we must continue on for the sake of what we have invested in and the sacrifices that have been made by members of our hometowns in the Guard and Reserve. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the fine gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Enyart).

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Enyart for his service to our Nation, both in the military forces as well as here in Congress. I would like to just reflect upon his remarks as well. It is my intent to bring a different standard of decorum and bearing to the discussion. Again, we understand that DOD is under significant pressure and fighting for its life. We would like a place at the table to have a discussion, because we don't think that a proportional cut--if you are cutting 100 percent, and you say 50 percent to the active component and 50 percent to the reserve component is the same thing, it is not the same thing if the reserve component costs one-third, yet you yield the same results when you have those servicemembers on the battlefield. We are going to continue the discussion, but at this time I would like to yield to my friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Yoho).

Mr. PERRY. Thank you, Mr. Yoho. And to continue the conversation, I would like to yield to the gentlewoman from the great State of Arizona (Ms. Sinema).

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady from Arizona and would also like to commend her on her comments regarding the Guard. Specifically, for me as an Army aviator, one of the main topics of discussion in the reduction of forces in the Guard is Army-Guard aviation. The comments that, quite frankly, that are disappointing and hit my heart are that Guardsmen train 39 days a year, and that is 2 days a month and 15 days a year of annual training. I would suggest to you that I know very few--as a matter of fact, I don't know one single Guard member that trains only 39 days a year. As a commissioned officer who was on flight status, I spent the bulk of my time during the 2 days a month, and 15 days in the year, commanding, doing administrative things, leading my troops, planning for the future, planning their training. The other time that I came in at least once a week, if not more often, was to get my flight time because I had the exact same requirements. It is important to note when folks say, well, they are not as trained, they are not accessible, and not ready as Active components, it is not to take anything away from the Active component, because they train every single day. I will tell you this: I have the same standards, require the same amount of flight hours, the same check rides, flight evaluations, the same physical requirements every single year as an Active Duty aviator. If I am a gun pilot, I must do gunnery. If I am a utility pilot, I must do sling loads, I must fly with night-vision goggles so that I am ready to go. Indeed, we are ready to go every single time. People say, well, why do we need attack assets? Why do we need the AH-64 Apache in the Guard? I am not sure, quite honestly, from the standpoint of are you protecting your State that we need that AH-64 Apache in the Guard, but I will tell this: most Guard units are replete with former members of the Active component. They did their time on Active Duty, whether it was 6 years, or whether it was 15 or 18, and then they came to the Guard, and they enhanced their skills. As a matter of fact, on Active Duty when you are downrange, when you are over the wire, and you are serving with Active Duty members and Guard and Reservists, oftentimes if given a choice to fly with members of the Guard as opposed to Active Duty, many Active Duty components will choose to fly with the Guard members. There is one simple reason. It is because the Active Duty component, even though they are serving all day long, every day of the year, as a captain you are administering your administrative duties. You are leading your troops. You are planning their training, but you are not flying. So the bulk of the experience in doing the job of flying the aircraft is actually in the Guard. If you have a choice between flying with a captain and a lieutenant who have 800 hours between them or flying with a Guard CW-4 and a captain that have 35 to 4,000 hours between them in difficult terrain, in difficult conditions, what would you choose? The mechanics who work on these aircraft don't work on them just a little bit and then move on to something else. They work on these aircraft for 20, 30 years at a stretch. They know every single thing about them; they live with them, they sleep with them. Oh, by the way, many of these folks are active Guard and Reserves. So it is not just 39 days a year, and not only more than that, it is every single day of the year. That is why the Guard and the Reserves are ready to go when called upon, and people will say, well, you are not ready to go. You have got to go to a MOB site and train before you can go. As a task force commander, a battalion commander who went through that, I was ready to go. I met my minimums, and I met every single requirement that the Active component met. So did all of the members of my unit, men and women who had served for years and years. When they send you to a place like that they give you a unit from Illinois, they give you a unit from Alaska, or a unit from Oregon, a unit on Active Duty, a unit from the Reserves. You haven't worked together. You have got to spend a little time figuring out your SOPs, your standard operating procedures, so that you can work together, and that does take some time. I would also say that sometimes the Guard and Reserve, things are placed upon them for training purposes that the Active component says we need, when we would argue we don't need, and they slow us down from getting to the fight. As an aviator, I wondered why I had to get into the heat trainer. I had to do rollover drills in a Humvee. I am not driving a Humvee around the streets of Iraq or Afghanistan. I am flying an aircraft, and that is where I should spend my time, but the Active component says, no, you all are going to do this and it takes some time. We get that. They want us to be safe and they want us to have that training. Okay, we get it. Our core mission, the things that we do, the things we train for, the things the taxpayers pay for is exactly the same for an Army aviator in the Guard as an Army aviator serving on Active Duty. Now, it might not be the same for artillery men or an infantryman or a medic or something like that, it might not be. I don't know because I don't serve in those branches, but I know my branch. I would say that each of us have our strengths and we recognize that. We recognize the Active component strength. I think in my heart that the Active component, DOD recognizes the strength of the Guard, but again, it would be my contention that DOD is fighting for its life, not against its brethren who have served in an Army of one, but against an administration who arguably doesn't have the same view as many of those who serve and many Americans that support the armed services of the armed services. So they are in a difficult position. I think about when they say that we are not ready to go, the Eastern Army Aviation Training Site, located at Fort Indiantown Gap where I serve, the folks that serve there work every single day, and they train Army aviators. That is what they do there. When you leave Fort Rucker and need to get an advanced aircraft, you come to EAATS many times-- Eastern Army Aviation Training Site--and learn to fly a Chinook, learn to fly a Black Hawk. They don't do that in Fort Rucker in many cases. Your advanced training happens in the Guard. That is where that experience is. Not only is it the same aircraft that many times the Active component is flying, but the EAATS folks oftentimes train even more advanced aircraft than the Active component's flying. I think that those EAATS guys are out training the special operations guys in the F model Chinook. These are Guard folks, training the Active component to go do their mission, and not just any Active component, special operations, the best of the best. Guard folks are training them. I don't want anybody to lose sight of that argument and that discussion. You know, I am not saying, again, that the Guard shouldn't do its part. We are ready to do our part. We understand that the budget is tight and that changes must be made. But we are asking again for an open and a transparent conversation that meets the standards of decorum and bearing that we have so come to love, and one of the reasons why many people serve in our Armed Forces. I want to be an army of one that doesn't fight with his brothers and sisters in the Active component. As a task force commander, I was privileged--and I mean well privileged--to command a task force of 800 to 1,000 souls that included National Guard, Active component, Reserves from the continental United States, from places in Europe, all fine individuals working under one commander, one mission, with one standard. I am concerned when I hear that the chiefs are being put into, in my opinion, a position to say that the Guard and the Reserves are lesser, because it is my experience that they are not. It is my experience when soldiers are serving side by side that they don't see, and they don't recognize, and they don't notice any difference. They do their jobs. I don't want the chiefs to be put in that position. So we are asking, we are pleading, through this, with the administration. Let's have an open process. Let's have one that is transparent. Let's have one that we can engage in a conversation, because if the Guard costs 30 percent of what the Active Duty costs are, then a proportional cut really isn't proportional. If we offer things that are important to the Nation, as is evidenced in the last 10 or 15 years of war by our presence, where 50 percent of the component is fighting those wars, not only in just logistics, but in kinetic activity, engaging the enemy in close combat, with the tools of the trade, with what you have offered and have sacrificed greatly, greatly, your Guard and Reserve, those men and women, they go, and some of them don't come home. Their sacrifice is just as important as those in the Active component. It would be my contention, Mr. Speaker, that we need to slow this process down. It needs to be opened up so that everybody can see, and so that everything can be evaluated and that the Guard and Reserve can do its part but shouldn't have to do more than its part. The Nation's investment in this readiness that you find in your States that comes into play when you have storms, when you have natural disasters, comes to play right there; that that readiness isn't lost, and that the days of the strategic Reserve are long in the past and that we don't go back to that failed model, and that we don't draw down so significantly that when we have a new administration, the American taxpayer will be asked, well, we are not ready to fight. We are not ready to meet our constitutional obligation to defend this Nation. Now we must spend more money to get back to where we were. We don't have to do that. This administration's actions right now, we are making a conscious choice to reduce our readiness without cause, without reason, without justification, without a conversation. So, while some will say that it is too expensive, we have an obligation. It is expensive. Training and equipment is expensive. There is a great deal to be had in the Guard and Reserve. Again, I would like to have a discussion that honors the decorum and bearing that all servicemembers are bound to. Mr. Speaker, in closing, I appreciate the time that the Nation has taken to listen to this argument. I would ask that you call, that you write, that you email, that you correspond with your Representatives in this House of Representatives, and in the Senate, and with this administration to talk to them about having an open process by which we have to make changes to our fighting forces and to the defense of this Nation. Well, let's have it open, let's have an open process, let's have a candid discussion, let's not pit one brother, one sister against another in this fight. We are all on the same team. Let's not do that. Let's have an open conversation and let's make the best arrangement we can that serves both the Guard, both the Reserve, both the Active forces, and in particular, the necessary defense of this Nation. General Leave

Mr. PERRY. With that, Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Rokita), my colleague. ObamaCare

Mr. PERRY. Thank you, Mr. Rokita. With that, Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about an issue that maybe is unknown to many Members and many citizens but should be known, which is the reduction of forces--the reduction in the capability of our military services across all branches, across the whole spectrum-- and how that process is going. It has been my studied opinion at this point that the process is what we should discuss at this time--a process that has lacked transparency, a process that has lacked deliberation. Now, while it is this Member's belief that the chiefs at the DOD are under significant pressure from an administration to defend this Nation, they are also under significant pressure to make cuts, not only to make those cuts, but to make those cuts in a very particular way. That is part of the discussion today--the cuts to the reserve forces. Before I recognize some of my colleagues, I just want to provide from the Joint Chiefs the definition of the operational reserve, which is your Guard and Reserve: As such, the services organize, resource, equip, train, and utilize their Guard and Reserve components to support mission requirements---- This is important: --to the same standards as their Active components. To the same standards, which is interesting to me because some of the recent reports and quotes that I have heard are things like it is structured to be complementary, and capabilities in its three components are not interchangeable. So that statement flies in the face of the original definition of what Guard and Reserve forces do. And things like saying that Guard and Reserve members only train 39 days a year, which, again, I think the Chiefs are under considerable pressure. DOD is fighting for its life-- not among its members but, in my opinion, against an administration; and they are doing what they have to do. I am an Army soldier. I joined an Army of one, not an Army of some of us get this and some of us get that. We all do the same work together at the same level; and that is the expectation, as it should be. But that is what we are going to discuss for the next hour. At this time, I yield to my colleague and friend from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent).

Mr. PERRY. Thank you, Representative Dent. I appreciate your comments and I appreciate your support for our Guard. Again, that is the discussion--a discussion about a process that should be open, that we should have a part in. What we would ask at this point is that the DOD not proceed with the plan until they have had input from everybody involved, which includes our Nation's Guard and Reserve and includes hometown heroes that serve right in every single town, every city, every hamlet, every village across the country, and serve their Nation well. In this Nation's wars in the last 10 to 15 years, they have been 50 percent of the fighting force. Why haven't we included them in the conversation in a meaningful way? With that, I would like to again yield to another colleague of mine from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus).

Mr. PERRY. Thank you. At this time I would also like to yield to my colleague from Mississippi (Mr. Palazzo), for a few comments.

Mr. PERRY

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support passage of H.R. 1513, a bill to revise the boundaries of the Gettysburg National Military Park to include the Lincoln Train Station which is an important part of our Nation's history. President Abraham Lincoln arrived at the Lincoln Train Station the day before delivering his historic Gettysburg Address. The station also served as a hospital during the Battle of Gettysburg and transported wounded soldiers after the battle. The Lincoln Train Station currently is operated by the Gettysburg Convention and Visitors Bureau and is owned by the Borough of Gettysburg. The Gettysburg Foundation and nonprofit partner of the park secured the necessary private funds to purchase the train station from the Borough of Gettysburg. The foundation will donate the train station to Gettysburg National Military Park, where it will be used as a downtown visitors center and meeting place. H.R. 1513 also allows the boundaries of Gettysburg National Military Park to include 45 acres of land along Plum Run in Cumberland Township. This property currently abuts land already owned by the National Park Service and will be donated by the Gettysburg Foundation to the National Park Service. The Gettysburg Foundation and Gettysburg National Military Park recently commemorated the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg and the dedication of the Soldiers National Cemetery. In addition to preserving our heritage, such historic preservation and tourism efforts remain a critical part of the regional economy. More than 235,000 visitors took part in the 10 days of the 150th anniversary events and contributed about $100 million to the local economy. Once the Battle of Gettysburg ended, both Union and Confederate armies moved on, leaving this small rural town to deal with the bloody and chaotic aftermath. Citizens were forced to care for the wounded, bury fallen soldiers and animals, rebuild their town, and begin the process of preserving this hallowed ground. Like the residents of Gettysburg 150 years ago, a group of dedicated individuals, 18,000 to 20,000 from across the country and across the world, have come together to preserve this battlefield and increase public understanding of the causes and consequences of the Battle of Gettysburg and its place within the context of American history. At a time when Federal and State budgets are tight, the great partnership between the Gettysburg Foundation, Main Street Gettysburg and the Borough of Gettysburg, and the National Park Service has led to the construction of a new visitors center, the preservation of the Cyclorama painting, the restoration of the battlefield to its 1863 appearance, and now the preservation of the historic Lincoln Train Station. This legislation simply is the latest significant piece of that puzzle. All interested parties are fully supportive of the boundary revision, and because the land is already owned by the Gettysburg Foundation and to be donated to the National Park Service no--I repeat, no--Federal funds will be used to purchase these properties. This legislation is good for Gettysburg, the National Park Service, and the American taxpayers. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of H.R. 1513, the Gettysburg Battlefield bill. I would also like to thank Doc Hastings, the ranking member, and the committee for the unanimous support.