[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 3 (Friday, January 6, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S575]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IN MEMORY OF SHERRY STETSON MANNIX
Mr. WARNER. Mr President, on Tuesday of this week, Sherry Stetson
Mannix died after a long and valiant battle with cancer. Mrs. Mannix's
title was Foreign Affairs Specialist in the Bureau of Multilateral
Affairs of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. But that does
not begin to describe her fine work or her life-long dedication to her
country.
Mrs. Mannix served for 11 years as an officer in the U.S Air Force
and then for another 9 years in the Air Force Reserve, achieving the
rank of lieutenant colonel. She joined the Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency in 1984 and became the Agency's premier expert on the Chemical
Weapons Convention, which she helped to negotiate. Both before and
after the CWC was negotiated, Mrs. Mannix was the principal persons to
whom we and others turned when questions arose on how that very
complicated convention would work.
During its consideration of the CWC last year, the Select Committee
on Intelligence, of which I was then vice chairman, submitted to the
executive branch over 130 questions for the record regarding the
Chemical Weapons Convention. It was Sherry Mannix who answered many of
those questions and edited the others, even though she was already in
tremendous physical pain due to the illness that she knew would soon
take her life. Those answers were so well-written and informative that
we actually published 64 of them, as an appendix to our committee's
public report, ``U.S. Capability to Monitor Compliance With the
Chemical Weapons Convention.'' Only rarely do we find such executive
branch answers so worthy of publishing, and only very rarely does any
human being demonstrate the devotion to duty and country that Mrs.
Mannix did throughout the last year.
Sherry Mannix was only 44 when she died. If life were fair, we would
have enjoyed her company and her service for many more years. Instead,
we today offer our deep condolence to her husband, retired Air Force
Lt. Col. Charles R. Mannix, and to her mother, Albertie Stetson, both
of whom reside in my State, as well as to her grandmother, Bernal B.
Allen. And in remembering Sherry Mannix we say, Thank you for a job
well done and a life well lived, right to the very end.
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