>> way to go, els. [ laughter ] >> well, it has taken a long time for henry johnson and william shem into receive the recognition they deserve. and there are surely others whose heroism is still unacknowledged and uncelebrated. so we have work to do as a nation to make sure that all of our heroes' stories are told. and we'll keep at it no matter how long it takes. america's the country we are today because of people like henry and william. americans who signed up to serve and rose to meet their responsibilities and then went beyond. the least we can do is to say we know who you are. we know what you did for us. we are forever grateful. may god bless the fallen of all of our wars. may he watch over our veterans and their families and all those who serve today. may god bless the united states of america. with that i'd ask chaplain to return to the podium for benediction. >> lord of all, as we go forward today we ask you to instill within us your peace, your courage, your strength. lead us to all that is good and brings honor to your creation. help us to defeat the evils we face each day. bless us with the wisdom to celebrate and recognize our capacity for good, to free the oppressed. let us serve all with valor as these men have shown and witnessed to us today. be upon us now and remain with us always. amen. >> with that we conclude the formal ceremony, but i welcome everybody to join in a wonderful reception. and let's give our medal of honor winners one big round of applause. [ applause ] >> thank you everybody. ♪ well, there is a lot to watch this weekend on c-span networks. politics, books and history all weekend for you. tomorrow on c-span hurricane katrina's tenth anniversary all day continues. and at 6:00 p.m. eastern our live coverage of the new orleans community commemoration and celebration. book tv on c-span2 at 10:00 p.m. eastern tomorrow evening our afterwards program with dan-el padilla peralta talking about undocumented. and on sunday on american history tv, which is c-span3 on the weekends, at 6:00 p.m. eastern time american artifacts takes you to jamestown island, virginia, for a tour of the trenches where digs were conducted and a visit to the lab where artifacts are studied. those are some of the highlights you can find more details on our schedules on our website at c-span.org. next, the congressional freshman profile with republican tom macarthur. the long-time insurance executive talks about efforts to bridge the partisan gap in congress, his family's charitable foundation and impressions of washington. >> congressman tom macarthur of new jersey, can you recall the first time you ever visited washington, d.c.? >> wow, that's a great question, bill. it was when i was a kid. i know i was here. but the first time i really remember being here and taking it all in was not long after i was married. i came with my wife. and it was before children, so i would say 33 years ago maybe. 32 years ago. >> just as a visitor? >> just as a visitor, yeah. >> so what surprised you about washington and congress in particular in the months you've been a member of the 114th? >> wow. it's an incredible privilege not just to observe but be part of it. be part of the discussion. try to frame the issues and move our country forward. i represent people back home in new jersey and do the right thing by them. i hope that never gets old for me. >> what's back home life? what's the makeup of the third district? >> well, it's the southern part of new jersey. there's only one congressional district out of 12 south of me. and it goes from the delaware river outside of philadelphia clear across the state to the ocean. and on the eastern side, the ocean side of my district, it's 30 miles of the most beautiful part of the jersey shoreline. in burlington county as you get over towards philadelphia i have a lot of farmland, beautiful country. it's just a great place, hard working people raising their families. it's a great place to live. >> as you came here as a member representing that district what were some of the issues that were top of your mind or top of your constituents that they wanted you to address? >> well, then and now it's the economy. we have had a recovery that doesn't feel like a recovery. and unemployment numbers are going down, but largely because people are dropping out of the workforce or taking part-time jobs and trying to hobble together a living. it's really unfortunate, but it's not been a recovery at all. and so that's what the people back home most want to see is congress work together, democrats and republicans, and get things done that can move our country forward. >> we saw a news article that says you have a regular practice of entering the house chamber through the doors on the democratic side of the aisle. why do you do that? >> well, i started to do it i think just, you know, sometimes you go in one side, sometimes you go in the other side. but i stopped and talked to people. and ever since, which has been really most of my time here, i just do it every time now because i see my republican colleagues at different events, social events, political events. we, you know, convene as a republican conference. i have plenty of opportunity to be with my republican colleagues, but less so with my democratic colleagues. and one of the things i observed even before i took office during the orientation process is that partisanship is sort of built into the dna of this place. and if you're not intentional aboutov overcoming it, you just slip into being a republican or democrat without very little action. it may seem like a simple gesture, but for me it's an opportunity to get to know people on the other side. >> have you seen other members trying to make that intentional effort at bipartisanship? >> well, i think -- yeah, there's certainly classmates of mine people that came in at the same time that believe that we were sent here to make the place work. and you simply cannot do that if you only focus on your own party. you can get away with it some of the time on issues perhaps that had broad support across party lines. but on issues where it could go one way or another, if you don't cultivate real genuine relationships with people in the other party, then i think those are lost moments. >> tell us about your background and what the experiences that you had that really you think trained you most or qualified you most for the position you're in now as a member of congress? >> well, i always said as i was running that i was running as a businessman. but i think the things that have shaped me and made me able to function in this place with other people because it's really a very human environment are not just the business things. it goes back further than that. i grew up in a middle class family. my dad was a mid-level government worker. my mom was a stay at home mom with five kids. and it was a pretty lively house. my mother was a very liberal democrat. and my father at that time was a very conservative republican. he's moderated a bit through the years. he's 85 now. and my mom was a democrat, my father was a republican. and we grew up literally arguing religion and politics around the dinner table. and i think that shaped me a lot. and i say my mom, this was my mom that raised me. my birth mother died when i was 4, of cancer. and my dad had no insurance at the time. and i watched him work at least two jobs and for most of my upbringing three jobs to pay -- i didn't know it at the time, but to pay for our family to stay together and have a life. it took him until i was about 19 years old to pay off the medical bills from my mother's death. she died when i was 4. you know, i watched his work ethic. it shaped my work ethic a lot. i got married out of college 33 years ago my wife and i had our first child was born with special needs. and that kind of grew me up fast. i was in my early 20s. we had to make a decision that nobody wants to make, which is what to do -- we found out in the fourth month of pregnancy that if she lived grace was going to have severe handicaps. and, you know, that shaped me a lot in life. and we had grace. she lived to be 11 years old. very, very difficult when she died. a dark couple of years. we had adopted a child and we adopted another child about a year and a half after grace passed. and so before i talk about business at all those are the things that make a person a person. those are the things that make me feel compassion when i see people struggling. because my life's not been all roses. and i think government can't do everything, but government can certainly help. and when i look at issues like health care or immigration or job creation and the economy, all the issues whatever you might think of for me it's trying to find where government can help real people have better lives. go ahead. >> given your back -- your experience with your mom and health care, is obamacare getting it right? >> unfortunately i think not. i think free market reforms are better. the intent is good. and i think there are things i would keep like coverage for kids up to 26 years old i think is good. i think preexisting condition coverage is important. these are things -- i came out of the insurance industry. and these are things insurance companies can model into their premiums. so i support that. and i also believe that we should have safety nets for those who have no access to coverage. i just think the federal government is the wrong place to do it. and i think state plans like that would be a better place. i saw it. i mentioned i was in business and that's probably the other major thing that shaped my life. >> insurance business? >> yeah. i got out of college. i was very lucky. i really fell in love with my first job. i investigated insurance claims in the new york city housing authority projects. and it was a really an eye opener. i grew up in a little farm town. i grew up working on a neighbor's dairy farm and suddenly i was transported into manhattan investigating claims in the projects. and i really found it interesting. i ended up going into management and ultimately had a chance to run a very small company and grew that from a one-office 100 or so people to thousands of people in 100 offices across the country. and i saw some things that help and hurt. i saw where state and federal action enabled us to do things and where it made it more difficult for us to do things. i learned to work with other people whether they agreed with me or not. because that's how you get business done. sometimes i made acquisitions. and i sat at the table with somebody who was my opponent in the marketplace. and figured out what they wanted and needed so that we could do a deal together. and those things i think combined with the things that have shaped me personally have given me ability to actually get things done. that's what i hope to bring -- >> politics begin somewhat of a calling. you've been a mayor, correct? >> i was a local mayor. i've always been interested in public policy and government's role. i studied history in college and focused a lot on americans social history and political history. and, yeah, i ran for a local office. actually became a local councilman and then a deputy mayor and a mayor. and i really liked it. and felt that i was pretty good at it. i solved some problems that had been unsolvable in a town, a small town of not small but mid size town of 26,000 people. and then when the seat opened up i decided i had something to offer and ran for the office. >> going back to your family for a moment understand that you and your wife set up a charitable foundation. what motivated that? and what do you do with that foundation? >> well, we -- my wife runs it. i'm her secretary and treasurer. but she's the leading person in that. and you know we started to do really well in business. and i grew up with a sense that when you've been blessed you have a responsibility to enjoy in helping other people and so we're trying to figure out what to do with the things that we had and we decided to create this foundation. initially to help children. we named it igh charitable foundation. maybe i'll take a moment and tell you about the name because it's kind of telling for how we thought about it. when i first suggested buying my company from its owners at the time, i had the first meeting with them and i -- i was running it already. but they owned it. they were interested. and i came back and you know how you do you put your notes into a file and i gave it a code name. because i didn't want, you know, put acquisition of york. i wanted to keep it a secret at that point. i gave it the code name igh. and by the time i was done with the acquisition i had file cabinets of these igh files. and it stood for in god's hands because i thought it was so far beyond, you know, this was so far beyond my ability to buy a company. i didn't have the money to do it. i borrowed half the money from the owners of the company to buy their company. and so we named the foundation that. and we wanted to focus on kids that were really in difficult circumstances that might feel uncared about. and we wanted to remind them that they're in god's hands too. so it's evolved somewhat. but at the time we focused just on children. we built a school in africa for kids that had lost both parents to aids. we've done work in india for young girls that were being prostituted at very young -- their mothers were prostitutes and they're literally growing up in the red light district. and we wanted to get them out of that environment. we've given away now over 2,200 wheelchairs in memory of our daughter grace. and as time has gone on we've felt the need to do other things. we've done a lot with disaster assistance. we've done a lot in the last five years or so with wounded warriors. and began to go into other directions as well. we still do a lot with children. and it's really been a great privilege to be able to see kids get some help and people get some help. >> we're catching you in a couple of days before the end of the session -- at least before the august recess. it's fairly light legislative day. but what's a typical day for you like here in the house? >> long. you know, there's a mix of official duties like being at hearings or briefings. there's relationship building. i'll spend time sometimes with other members and try to get to know them and then them me. there's getting my mind around the issues i'm voting on. and while it's hard to get deeply involved in every issue i simply won't vote on an issue without knowing i'm voting why the way i'm voting. even a suspension rules have been suspended because it's sort of an easy bill to pass. even those i have a need to understand what i'm voting on. so i'll spend some time on that. there are some political responsibilities sometimes that go beyond the official office. and for those we have to leave government property and go do that. so there's a lot of -- a lot to it. >> how's your relationship with speaker boehner and his team? >> it's good. the speaker has been incredibly helpful to me. when i was running. and he's been helpful since. just in terms of giving guidance. i've spoken to him on a number of issues that concerned me. he's been helpful politically to me outside of the official duties. >> well, your district's considered a bit of a toss-up district. do you think that leadership understands the political calculations you have to consider as you prepare for the next round of -- >> they do. and i make sure they understand. you know, i try hard. i'm a republican for a reason. and so i'm -- you know, i vote in a way that a republican would vote much of the time. but there have been key votes where i simply couldn't support my party's direction. and i've tried very hard to make those known as early as possible. because i just think that's an important part of being on a team. >> you say you're a republican for a reason. your dad was a conservative republican. but your mom was pretty liberal. what about your mom's political views that you can recall or your memory of her that you appreciate or that you agree wi