[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 145 (Monday, September 18, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S13679]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        POW-MIA RECOGNITION DAY

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, on Friday, I joined with the Members of 
this body, and with all the citizens of our Nation, in commemorating 
the American service members who are missing in action and whose fates 
yet remain unknown.
  Our Nation honored those who are missing, both for their service and 
for their sacrifice.
  We acknowledged the shared loss inflicted upon all of us when young 
men and women are sent to war and do not return to us. We expressed our 
understanding of the terrible frustration, and, yes, even the anger, 
energized in us by the fact that the fates of those American service 
members remain unknown.
  We restated our sacred obligation to take every reasonable step to 
obtain the fullest possible accounting for those still missing.
  We endorsed anew our national commitment to recover and identify the 
remains of the honored dead.
  Yes, it is so important to honor our missing service members. And it 
is necessary to ever remember our obligations, both to them and to 
their families.
  Yet it is also important to acknowledge that there are practical and 
realistic limits to what can ever be learned. There are mysteries that 
will remain forever unsolved in this world.
  We do our Nation's service members no justice if we fail to take 
every single reasonable step to recover them when they are lost from 
our midst. But we do them no honor--yes, we even dishonor them--if we 
are to allow their loss to become an albatross forever about the necks 
of our caring countrymen.
  Mr. President, Friday our Nation paused to commemorate our missing in 
action, including members of my own family in World War II. Today, and 
every day, we must remember their service and their sacrifice. And 
today, and every day, our Nation can continue to honor them by ensuring 
that America remains wholly committed, at home and abroad, to the 
freedoms they fought to preserve forever.

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