[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 47 (Tuesday, April 26, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 26, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1050
 
 TRIBUTE TO CHRISTOPHER ANDREW HEIL UPON HIS RETIREMENT AS AN OFFICIAL 
        REPORTER OF DEBATES OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Clayton). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of February 11, 1994, the gentlewoman from Maryland [Mrs. 
Morella] is recognized during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. MORELLA. Madam Speaker, my colleagues may have noticed that 
there has been considerably less shorthand written on the House floor 
this year. With the retirement of Christopher Andrew Heil from the 
staff of the Official Reporters of Debates in March, the end of the era 
of legislative stenographic reporting by the use of manual shorthand 
systems comes inexorably closer. It is hard to imagine that in 1973, 
when Chris joined the House staff, there were no stenotype or machine 
writers; all the floor reporters used either the Gregg or Pitman 
system, following in the tradition of Charles Dickens, who studied 
human nature and honed his literary craft as a stenographic Hansard 
reporter in the British House of Commons.

  With his retirement, Chris knows that though all good things must 
end, other good things await. With his wife Agnes, he now finds time to 
visit his four children and his grandchildren located throughout the 
Capital and Atlantic coast region. An accomplished photographer, both 
as an amateur and at one time a professional, he now looks forward to 
satisfying his passion of recording the beauties of nature on film.
  A native of Summit County and Akron, OH, Chris graduated from 
Columbia Union College in Takoma Park, MD and later, from 1948 to 1950 
received his professional training as a court reporter at Gregg College 
in Chicago. His career as a reporter, specializing in the reporting of 
court trials, depositions, statements, and arbitration and Government 
agency hearings, took him to Cleveland, where he was employed by the 
reporting firm of Fincun, Hagan and Morse, and Toledo, OH, where he 
owned and operated his own free-lance reporting firm prior to a brief 
stint as a floor reporter in the U.S. Senate and his permanent 
appointment on the House staff.
  One day in the life of Chris Heil--June 6, 1944, D-Day--stands out 
above all others. As a U.S. Army combat engineer expert, trained in 
mine detecting, he landed on Omaha Beach as part of a vanguard force 
clearing the way for Gen. Omar Bradley's 1st Infantry Division 
spearheading the Allied invasion of France's Normandy coast. His 
survival is an incredible story of devotion, bravery, and luck. It was 
a productive day; the mission went well until late on that fateful day 
when both Chris and his mine detector were put out of action by enemy 
fire. Amid the death and destruction that seemed never-ending, Chris, 
through heroic efforts of U.S. Army and Coast Guard personnel, was 
evacuated. Six months later, with the wound to his left leg nearly 
healed, he was reassigned to duty as a combat engineer on the European 
continent. In Belgium, he was wounded again when a building he occupied 
was bombed. Later, after sweating out an impending reassignment to the 
Pacific theater, the war ended and Chris came home.
  Like so many of his contemporaries, Chris took advantage of the G.I. 
Bill of Rights to train for his chosen profession--a profession he had 
never heard of before his Army service. It was in a hospital in 
Swansea, Wales, that Chris, clamoring for scarce reading material as he 
recovered from the wounds he had suffered on D-Day, was given a Gregg 
shorthand textbook. With nothing better to read, he thumbed through the 
pages and found himself developing an interest. Interest turned to 
fascination, and thus was born a resolve to become a shorthand expert.

  After Chris recuperated and returned to the front, he referred often 
to the shorthand textbook which he had retained and even found time to 
practice what he had learned. Once, so the story goes, he was observed 
as he stood guard at night on the perimeter of his encampment moving 
his bayonet through the surface of a patch of snow that lay on the 
ground.
  ``What are you doing, Heil?'' asked a puzzled comrade.
  There was nothing for it but the truth, as improbable as it may have 
sounded. ``Just practicing my shorthand,'' Chris answered.
  Madam Speaker, our thanks go out to Chris for his years of service, 
his expertise, and his professionalism as an employee of the House, and 
we would note, too, that certainly his unselfish defense of his country 
and our liberties deserve the thanks of all Americans.

                          ____________________