[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 89 (Tuesday, July 12, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 12, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
     DEDICATION OF U.S.S. ``STETHEM'' TO AN AUTHENTIC AMERICAN HERO

  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, this Saturday at the west bank facility 
in Pascagoula, MS, Mrs. Patricia L. Stethem will christen the Aegis 
guided missile destroyer, the U.S.S. Stethem (DDG 63). The Stethem is 
named for her son Robert Dean Stethem, a courageous and heroic young 
Navy diver who was brutally murdered by Lebanese hijackers in 1985.
  Robert was returning from an assignment in Greece when the plane he 
was on was seized by hijackers. He was rated as a diver and assigned to 
Navy Underwater Construction Team No. 1 in Norfolk, VA. In a moving 
editorial in the Washington Post on January 27, 1989, that paper paid 
tribute to Robert Stethem's heroism. Commenting on the trial of the 
hijacker, Mohammed Ali Hamadi, the Post concluded:

       The truth that emerges from the Frankfurt courtroom is an 
     instructive one: It is a picture of one young man attempting 
     each day to dissociate himself from acts that grow more 
     shameful with each retelling and of another who offered his 
     country as pure an example of courage as it could want.

  Robert Dean Stethem was only 23 years old when he was murdered. To 
this day the pain of losing their son intrudes on the daily life of the 
Stethem family. Their home is filled with mementos of Robert. His 
community in southern Maryland where he grew up has remembered him by 
establishing the Robert D. Stethem Memorial Sports Complex in Waldorf, 
MD, in his honor.
  As John F. Kennedy said:

       Stories of past courage can * * * teach, they can offer 
     hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply 
     courage itself. For this each man must look into his own 
     soul.

  Few people could find the courage to act as Robert Dean Stethem did 
in 1985. Mr. Stethem epitomized the very best this country has to 
offer, and it is an appropriate and fitting tribute to him that the 
Nation is now dedicating the U.S.S. Stethem to this authentic American 
hero.

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