[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 131 (Monday, August 7, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S11794]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                      JENNIFER KNOX, ``THE WALL''

   Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, so often we rush through our 
lives here in the U.S. Senate facing daily issues, debates, constituent 
concerns and the press of daily business, never pausing to reflect on 
things outside of Congress; important pieces of the American 
experience. Every once in a while an event occurs, totally unexpected, 
which gives you pause to think about truth, meanings, and priorities.
  That occurred for me last week when a wonderful family stopped by my 
office from Washington State: a pair of grandparents, Kenneth and Pat 
Staley, and their two grandchildren, Jennifer and Ben Knox. They had 
driven cross-country, 3,000 miles, to visit the Nation's Capitol and 
for Jennifer, 12, to receive a poetry award.
  I asked, as I often do, what they saw here that impressed them most. 
Jennifer told me that one memorial in particular impressed upon her so 
deeply that she had written a poem, which she was gracious enough to 
share with me.
  Today I share it with my colleagues because I think it speaks so 
profoundly as to why we should take the time and money to erect 
memorials for our Nation's heroes. As you can see from her words, 
Vietnam veterans, because of their memorial, will never be forgotten. I 
ask that it be printed in the Record.
  The poem follows:

                                The Wall

       I'll remember the day
       I visited the wall
       The shiny black wall
       Bearing the names
       Each name a life, a person, a soul
       That died for our country away from home.
       The number was staggering, thousands of deaths,
       They never came back to the home that they left.
       And our tears made a pool so clear and so wide
       That proved to the world how much we'd cried.
       Time healed the wound but left
       A scar, a memory, a reminder.
       It is in the hearts of our people.
        Forget, we will never.
       

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