[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 141 (Monday, October 3, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 3, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
             COMMEMORATING THE SERVICEMEN KILLED IN SOMALIA

  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, since I have that time, before I yield to 
the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] I want to answer perhaps 
part of the question for that father whose son was killed in Somalia.
  Mr. DORNAN. Or the son lying near death in the last few hours----
  Mr. HUNTER. Or the young man who has been shot in Haiti, and I think 
the answer has to do with priorities, and I think we can look back at 
liberal administrations since Vietnam, during Vietnam and since, and we 
have seen a situation in which typically politics has prevailed over 
the safety of American service people, and let me just say that in 
Vietnam many times our political leaders had a chance to end that war 
early, to do tough things with North Vietnam, to do things that were 
not diplomatically acceptable to them, and because of that there was 
only one currency that they were willing to expend in South Vietnam, 
and that currency was American soldiers, and because of that many times 
soft bodies of American G.I.'s ended up taking the hits when American 
bombing, and strategic positions and places, while it would have been 
done to the criticism of the world, it would have been attended by the 
criticism of world diplomats, nonetheless would have saved Americans 
from dying.
  In Somalia we had basically the same thing where the American 
commander on the ground asked for armor. He asked for armor because he 
knew you had to have armor to get through the streets in Somalia in the 
urban areas because the other side has RPG's, rocket propelled 
grenades, and the thin-skinned vehicles that we had could not stand up 
to that----
  Mr. DORNAN. And the big specter gunships were not overhead.
  Mr. HUNTER. And central command approved the request for armor, and 
it was briefed by Colin Powell to President Clinton's Secretary of 
Defense, Les Aspin, and it was turned down, and I am paraphrasing Mr. 
Aspin, ``for political reasons.'' It is because it would have made our 
military look ``too militaristic.''

                              {time}  2100

  Mr. DORNAN. Too offensive.
  Mr. HUNTER. So once again American soft bodies were sacrificed 
because the prevailing sentiment in Washington, DC, in a liberal 
administration, and the overwhelming sentiment was in favor of 
diplomacy, in favor of world image, in favor of politics, and not in 
the best interests of our fighting people.
  Mr. DORNAN. I am going to just mention their last names, because we 
probably only have a couple minutes left, and their age. Helicopter 
pilot Wolcott, 36; Donovan Briley, 33; Tommy Field, 25; Ray Frank, 36 
months in your war in Vietnam, 45; Sergeant Cleveland, 34; Private 
First Class Jimmy Martin, 23. He is from Fort Drum. The other Fort Drum 
young black sergeant, Cornell Houston, 31. The six rangers: Richard 
Kowalewski, 20; Sergeant James Joyce, 24. His father testified 
movingly, beautifully, at the Senate. James Cavaco, 26; Dominick Pilla, 
21; Lorenzo Ruiz, 27; Jimmy Smith, his father was a Vietnam vet, 21. 
And then these top sergeants, Master Sergeant Tim Martin, 38; Sergeant 
First Class Earl Fillmore, 28; Staff Sergeant Danny Busch, 25. And then 
our two Medal of Honor winners, posthumously awarded, Sergeant First 
Class Randy Shugart, whose dad refused to shake Clinton's hand, 35; and 
Gary Gordon, 33, whose wife, Carmen, wrote one of the most beautiful 
letters I have ever seen in my life in Newsweek Magazine.

  I went to mass last night at Saint Columbus Church in Garden Grove; 
1,500 Vietnamese, men, women and children celebrating mass. And as 
Sally and I stood in the back of Saint Columbus, I notice a plaque on 
the wall. Seven men's names, from Garden Grove, who died in Vietnam, 
that those 1,500 people, 200 across the wall and every one of the 1,300 
seats filled, could attend a religious service in this free country.
  And on the way in from the airport, I stopped in at the Vietnam Wall, 
I didn't know you do this, to try and get their names out of a book. In 
the kiosk, a park guard said, ``Give me their names.'' Within 2 
minutes, I had all seven names. Five of them are born in the same year 
as President Clinton, 1946. one marine major in 1936, my brother's 
year, and one a year younger than Clinton. Six of them their birthdays 
are all within the same year and a half of Clinton's birthday, two of 
them in August, his birthday.
  And I thought of these men and what they gave, so that those 1,500 
people ended up in the United States in my Garden Grove going to a 7 
o'clock mass. And I wondered, is there going to be a wall somewhere for 
the 19 men that died on the third and fourth last year, the 30 overall? 
And what about if somebody dies in Haiti? Where do we go to get their 
name and remember them? These are dangerous times with the poor 
leadership we have at the top.

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