I relate with military families and Gold Star families. Gold Star families are families where somebody didn't come home. My father died in 1949. He was a flight instructor in the Army Air Corp.

I have some fond memories - a couple of the nights on the town ... a couple of songs I wrote when I was messed up that I'm sure wouldn't have come out of me unless I was messed up. It's kind of happy-sad about those days - I could do anything I wanted to. I did. And now I don't want to do any of that.

I enjoy my solo career because I get to play smaller places like clubs and theaters, and the interaction with the audience is much higher quality. It also sounds better than a baseball stadium. Everybody has a good seat, and I don't have to play a specific part like I do in the Eagles.

L.A. is kind of flat these days; I guess Austin and other places are like that now. But that's what I wanted to get across: You could be as crazy as you wanted, and that was OK. You didn't have to be good; people would still come and hear you.

I'm very disturbed about the uptick in shootings and violence at our military installations across the nation.

My parents had met in high school and married right after my father came back from World War II. They honeymooned in Paris and returned to that city when my father, in college on the G.I. Bill, was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship.

We should never denigrate any other culture but rather help people to understand the relationship between their own culture and the dominant culture. When you understand another culture or language, it does not mean that you have to lose your own culture.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Peace Corps as it reached its 45th anniversary on March 1, 2006.