Orderly and Responsible Iraq Redeployment Appropriations Act, 2008

ORDERLY AND RESPONSIBLE IRAQ REDEPLOYMENT APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - November 14, 2007)

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Mr. THOMPSON of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker and Members, I rise in strong support of the bill that is before us today. First and foremost, I want to point out that every Member on this floor, every Member knows that the brave men and women of our military have done a fantastic job, and every Member on this floor supports the brave men and women serving our country.

Mr. Speaker, too many of those brave men and women have been doing a fantastic job for way too many tours. Multiple tours. The last time I was in Iraq, I had lunch with a group of soldiers from California, one of whom was a firefighter from the North Bay in California, and he said, I used to have a house in your district, but I don't anymore. My ex-wife has it now. I said, I am sorry to hear that. He said, well, this is my fourth tour. I couldn't expect much else.

Our men and women have been put under a tremendous strain for far too long. Our military equipment has been depleted. Over $100 billion is needed to bring our military equipment up to standard. Our combat readiness has been depleted. This bill, this bill is about refocusing our area; to transition, transition our effort into force protection, diplomatic protection, counterterrorism, refocus our effort looking into the future for future problems that we may have. It's long past time to refocus our efforts; it's long past time to transition.

This bill does represent a change. We heard from the previous speaker that there wasn't much change. Mr. Speaker and Members, if there wasn't any change in this bill, we wouldn't be facing the opposition from the other side that we are facing tonight. This bill represents major change.

This bill represents a policy change that the American people are demanding. They demanded it in the November election; they demand it today. It's long past time for this transition to take place. This war can't go on forever. We know that on this side of the aisle and we know it on the other side of the aisle.

A lot of comparisons have been made tonight with Vietnam. I want to make just one. I served in Vietnam with the 173rd Airborne Brigade. I didn't do anything exceptional. I showed up; I did my job. But there came a time in past Congresses that it was known that we were going to leave Vietnam, and from the time that we knew that our colleagues, our past colleagues knew that we were going to leave Vietnam, until we actually left Vietnam, 21,000 Americans died.

They knew, our colleagues in past Congresses knew that we couldn't sustain that. We weren't going to be in Vietnam forever. They knew we had to leave. From the time they absolutely knew it on this floor until we left, 21,000 brave American men died in Vietnam. I was one of the lucky ones. I was only wounded. I lost a lot of friends. We lost a lot of fellow Americans.

We cannot make that same mistake. We know that the Iraq war cannot go on forever. We know that on both sides of the aisle. It's time for a major policy change. This bill represents that major policy change. I urge everyone to vote ``aye'' for the underlying bill.

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