Mr. Speaker. I have just returned from an extraordinary experience in July. 2014 in Israel. the land I first came to in 1949 at the tender age of three and a half. already a refugee. from postWorld War II Europe. Yet nothing could have prepared me for the surrealistic reality of approaching rockets and wailing sirens. a frightful scenario that Israeli citizens of all ages in its south have had to contend with for fourteen long years. with only fifteen seconds to find protective shelter. I will long remember being awakened E1391 by the sirens piercing sounds of war alert at 3:15 a.m. in Haifa.