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Norton Sends Off DC National Guard Troops To Iraq & Promises to Introduce Legislation (5/2/09)

May 4, 2009

Norton Sends Off D.C. National Guard Troops to Iraq and Promises to Introduce Legislation Next Week to Benefit Them for Their Service

May 2, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. -Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) spoke this morning to D.C. National Guard troops and their families as the 547th Transportation Company prepared for another round of duty in Iraq. She thanked the soldiers for their dual service to the nation and the city, whether drawing lottery tickets for the 2009 Presidential Inauguration at her request or serving for the second time in Iraq, and later shook hands with each soldier, Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz, who was re-appointed this week by President Barack Obama to lead the D.C. National Guard. She told the soldiers that when she dedicated the D.C. House Voting Rights Act this year to two soldiers, the unknown soldier from the District, who was the first to fall in the war for Independence to end taxation without representation, and to Specialist Darryl T. Dent, a 21-year old graduate of Roosevelt High School, a member of the 547th , and the first D.C. resident to die in the Iraq War. The Congresswoman also told the soldiers, in recognition of their departure today, that next week she will introduce the D.C. National Guard Retention and College Access to permanently authorize higher education grants for D.C. National Guard members and the D.C. National Guard Homeland Security Act to give the Mayor of the District of Columbia authority to call out the Guard here for a national disaster or civil disturbances.

Norton has succeeded in getting higher education grants in the past, matched by a smaller amount from the District, but she hopes to permanently reauthorize the grants to give the members of the D.C. National Guard the same education opportunities afforded guard members in surrounding jurisdictions and other states.

The Congresswoman, who has seen off every deployment and welcomed every return of the D.C. National Guard, reminded the soldiers they are leaving as the war is winding down rather than rising. She said that she hoped today would be the last time she would need to see off D.C. National Guard soldiers to Operation Iraqi Freedom, and she looks forward to welcoming them home when they return with a job well done.