[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 14 (Thursday, February 1, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H1207-H1216]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           A HISTORICAL DATE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, I am sure glad that there is an outstanding 
member of the freshman class and a friend and compadre in the chair. I 
like to feel good vibrations coming down on the back of my neck from 
that lofty high perch up there.
  Today is a historical day for me personally, Mr. Speaker. Today is 
the first day that when we adjourn here, that I will be a full-time 
candidate for the Presidency of the United States. My eight worthy men 
of high character who are all out there competing have been full-time 
candidates for an entire year.
  I declared in this well at this lectern on February 7 last year, 
which was the 40th anniversary of my receiving my Air Force wings of 
silver. It was the 25th anniversary of the POW-MIA bracelet I still 
wear, No. 1, for a master sergeant, Jimmy Holt, from Hope, AK, one of 
the heroes from Hope who went missing on February 7 of 1968, right at 
the end of the infamous Tet offensive, and in the whole year, the 
leader of the other Chamber set the schedule so he was a full-time 
candidate whenever he felt like it. He has 100 percent attendance 
record last year and this year, never missed a vote. When there were 
three Senators in, when my friend Mr. Specter of Pennsylvania was in, 
all he had to do was watch the leader. When he left, they left. He went 
to New Hampshire, they followed him, or he went to Iowa or somewhere 
else. The other five are all literally full-time. My friends Allen 
Keyes and Pat Buchanan gave up their broadcasting and writing careers, 
to their credit, and have been full-time candidates for a year.
  The two millionaires, multi millionaires, make $15 million a year, 
Morry Taylor, and Steve Forbes, Malcolm Forbes, Jr., worth $500 million 
or so, they have been full-time candidates, turning their corporations 
over to chief operating officers, and Lamar Alexander on ``Meet the 
Press'' this Sunday said he draws almost $300,000 a year from his law 
firm in Nashville, from Howard Baker's law firm. He has been a full-
time candidate for 3 years. They have all raised among them tens, 
twenties of millions of dollars. It is almost all gone, and the only 
one with 

[[Page H1208]]
the bottomless purse, kind of like Ross Perot this go-around, is Steve 
Forbes, and the media is just rocketing him to stardom, because he 
spent about $18 million on commercials.
  So now I get in the fray full time starting tonight, and obviously 
there is not much you can do in 3 weeks. I have been a chairman of two 
subcommittees. Here is the difference: Which has voted for the 30th 
time, Mr. Speaker? The Senate has voted once this year. Last year we 
were in session 30 to 40 days more than they were. Are you aware we 
voted 272 times, each vote taking between 15 to 20 minutes, 272 more 
votes in this House. This is the House of the Contract With America, 
the revolutionary House, and even in a normal year, it is the 
appropriations House. All taxing bills and all money spending bills 
originate in this Chamber.
  So I have no regrets. It has been the most successful year of my 
life. I have go so much DNA invested in the defense authorization and 
appropriation bills that my staff kiddingly called one the ``Dornan 
Authorization Bill,'' and in a shootout with Clinton on three major 
items he stripped out of the authorization bill, which is on his desk 
as I speak, and he will either veto it, which nobody predicts, or pass 
it after having ripped out of it the language on no U.S. troops under 
foreign command; I wrote that language for the Contract With America. 
It went into the bill, went through a tougher conference with the 
Senate. He demanded it come out. He wants U.S. troops under U.N. and 
foreign command.

  No. 2, no missile defense. I do not care whether you call it 
Strategic Defense Initiative, as took place under Reagan in his third 
year, with Dr. Teller's guidance and that of an absolute American Paul 
Revere hero, three star general, Gen. Danny Graham who is buried with 
full military honors, 15-cannon salute at Arlington, the son of an Army 
sergeant, honored West Point graduate. Danny Graham brought me into his 
organization High Frontier. I ran the American Space Frontier PAC for 
him the 2 years I was gerrymandered out of the Congress between being 
sworn in in 1977, where I had 2 years, 1983 and 1984, out. That was the 
year of the nuclear freeze nonsense, and I traveled all over. I think I 
hit all 50 States for Danny Graham on defending the American homeland.
  Clinton demanded that national missile defense on line by 2003 by 
ripped out of the defense authorization bill. Out.
  No. 3, the unconstitutional right that he claims and mysteriously the 
leader of the Senate subscribes to, that he has the constitutional 
right to send American troops at his whim to Somalia, to Bosnia, to 
Haiti, back to Somalia, to Rwanda, Chechnya, Tibet, anywhere in the 
world, and all he has to do is to say to this Chamber ``ah, ah, ah, ah, 
I just bailed out a radioman into Tibet, we must support our trooper on 
the ground.'' The next day, if he gets two men in, then they pluralize 
it, ``support our troops.''

                              {time}  2115

  You cannot exercise your constitutional right to control the armies 
and the navies that you raise. It is totally the prerogative of the 
President.
  I carry around my Constitution. Here it is right here. Article 2, 
section 2, ``The President shall be commander-in-chief of the Army and 
Navy and of the United States.'' That is only 16 words. Take the action 
words. ``President,'' ``commander.'' That is all. It does not say 
anything else. It is followed by 18 words, ``and of the militia of the 
several states,'' thirteen at that time, ``when they are called into 
the actual service of the United States.'' They had no National Guard 
or full-time militia. Every Minute Man went back to his plow. So that 
is it. It says nothing.
  But for the Congress of the United States it, it delineates we shall 
have the power to raise armies and build navies, and that means what 
they will be paid, what they will wear, their colors, their numbers, 
where they will be posted or bivouacked or stationed throughout the 
world, what they will fly, what they will shoot, how many ships they 
will have, how fast they will go, how much we will spend on 
intelligence, on research and development. Every single weapon system, 
from the Beretta pistol, the Sig Saur for the Special Forces, or up to 
the new F-22 or the joint advanced tactical fighter we are developing. 
All of that is determined by this Congress.

  Where did Clinton or the leader of the Senate think that these two 
words, ``President,'' ``commander,'' embodied in 16 baffled words 
there, where did this give him the right to send Americans into the 
minefields of Bosnia? Of course, it did not, and every scholar worth 
his salt across this country, and particularly the scholarly people 
over at the Library of Congress, say he does not have that 
constitutional right.
  Now, what about Michael New, Specialist Michael New, the outstanding 
paramedic specialist in the 3d Division in Germany, court-martialed a 
little over a week ago, a bad conduct discharge.
  Amazing. I spoke with Michael. Only one other Congressman, no, one 
Senator, has ever spoken to him, and did not give him much time. But I 
advised Michael to go to Macedonia; that I agreed with him it was 
illegal to order our men to wear a blue beret or put on a blue U.N. arm 
band, but I told him that was our battle here in the Congress, and I 
would win it for him; to bite his lip, go down there, take that order.
  He said no, sir, I respectfully am not going to do it. My parents are 
behind me. I asked if he was married. He said no. I said all right, if 
your parents are in your corner, you are walking in a minefield. You 
are liable to get a discharge you will not like, but I am still going 
to continue to fight the battle here in the House. I am sorry you do 
not take my recommendation, but God-speed. I guess you are showing a 
lot of courage of your conviction.
  Now he has a bad conduct discharge. He is appealing, so he remains on 
the payroll until then. I just sent a letter over to the Army asking 
them to delineate every single thing he can do and what course they 
expect us to take when there is, I think, soon to be a majority in this 
body and in the U.S. Senate, that feels that they only raise their hand 
to swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States.
  Here before me, sent to me by a young enlisted man who just took this 
oath of office, and his name is a mouthfull, he took this oath to sign 
up in the Army for 4 years on 28 November, 1995. His first name is 
Allen, I am going to spell his last name. C-H-E-R-N-O-M-A-S-H-E-N-T-S-
E-V.
  He sent this to me to show what they sign. It has not changed from 
the time I took it at 19 years of age to go in the Air Force, took it 
less than 2 years later to become an aviation cadet, took it again as a 
Second Lieutenant on February 7, 1955, as I mentioned at the top of my 
remarks, and then I took it again after a break to go back on active 
duty in the reserves, and I have taken it in this Chamber nine times, 
the first time holding the hand of our youngest daughter, kind of snuck 
on the floor as a teenager, and then I held the hand of several 
grandchildren the last two or three Congresses. So I have taken it 9, 
10, 11, 12, 13 times. Here is the oath for enlisted men.
  I, Robert K. Dornan, (I did this January 30, 1953, wow, 42 years and 
2 days ago.) I, Robert K. Dornan, do solemnly swear that I will support 
and defend the ``Constitution of the United States'' against all 
enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and 
allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the 
President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed 
over me according to the regulations and the uniform code of military 
justice, so help me God.
  Now, therein lies the problem of the court martial of Specialist 
Michael New. He wanted to defend the Constitution and its laws, and he 
said he was torn by the verbal orders he was getting from his officers 
through the President of the United States. So he was torn, and the 
court martial came down on the side of the following the direct orders 
of his commanders. That is why I advised him to go on to Macedonia and 
let us fight the battle here.
  Here is an officer's oath, and this for warrant officers too. I, 
Robert K. Dornan, (I first took this February 7, 1955, having been 
appointed an officer in the Air Force of the United States in the grade 
of Second Lieutenant,) do solemnly swear that I will support and defend 
the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and 
domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that 
is the 

[[Page H1209]]
Constitution, and that I take this obligation freely, without any 
mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and 
faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to 
enter, so help me God.
  Now, did you notice the difference there, Mr. Speaker? There is no 
mention of the President and no mention of the orders of officers 
appointed over me. If Michael New were a brand new Second Lieutenant, 
would he have had a stronger case in that court martial that he was 
bearing true faith and allegiance to the Constitution that he swore to 
support and defend? And the Constitution does not talk about wearing 
the regalia of any foreign power or of serving anything but your United 
States Constitution. Certainly not a UN charter!

  Now, what is happening from Bosnia? People in my cloakroom, and I 
will bet in the other, were shocked at this front page article on the 
great Washington Times last Monday, the 29th, four days ago. ``Put on a 
happy face, troops in Bosnia told.'' ``Praise Clinton if press asks,'' 
an Army written guide says. Tusar Air Force Base, Hungary, this is by 
Bill Gertz, a great reporter who spent three weeks to a month embedded 
with the troops over there.
  U.S. troops are grumbling about a pamphlet that advises them to tell 
any inquiring reporter they have full confidence in their commanders 
from President Clinton on down. The pamphlet entitled ``answers you can 
use'' was prepared by the Army's 5th Corps and has been distributed to 
all Army troops in Bosnia to help them deal with pesky press inquiries. 
One suggested answer is U.S. forces are competent, are trained and 
competent leaders. We have pride in our leadership from the President 
on down and full trust in their decision.
  The problem is, not all of the soldiers feel that way. ``That one 
answer particularly got me,'' said a colonel, who asked not to be 
named. A female sergeant with the 4th Aviation Brigade passed at 
Koperzar Airfield, that is also in Hungary, last stop before Bosnia, 
also took issue. It says she voted for Clinton, but never again. The 
story gets more interesting as you get into it.
  So I called up the Pentagon and said I want that 5th Corps pamphlet. 
No results to this day. But, Mr. Speaker, as you well know, I have my 
ways, and I got hold of the pamphlet, a reasonable fax copy thereof. 
5th Corps emblem. Fifth Corps media reference card. Guidelines for 
dealing with civilian news media.
  I find this extremely offensive. Listen to this, Mr. Speaker.
  I just read that line, U.S. forces are competent and have trained and 
competent leaders. We have pride in our leadership, from the President 
on down, and full trust in their decisions.
  U.S. forces have a long tradition of working with the United Nations. 
(Yes, like in Somalia. Nineteen dead American heroes, including two 
Medal of Honor winners.) And are confident in our abilities to work 
together in their missions.
  It goes on to say, you will not respond ``no comment.'' It says you 
may not discuss future plans and operations, of course, foreign policy 
matters, operational capabilities, or give opinions or hypothesized 
situations.
  ``Stay in your lane, soldier!''
  If a reporter comes to your unit and is unescorted by a public 
affairs officer or escort, well, how do you handle Ernie Pyle in these 
circumstances? Refer them to the joint information bureaus. If they are 
escorted you may answer their questions, but inform your chain of 
command immediately about their presence in your area.
  Do not make off the record statements. Assume that a reporter's 
recorder is always on. Anything you say to the reporters will be used.
  And the thing that just blows me away is that they are not supposed 
to say ``no comment.'' I thought that was pretty standard.
  Now, this reporter, who was embedded with the troops, continues with 
some fascinating observations. Listen to this: Some soldiers said they 
were offended by the attempt to guide their responses. The guidelines 
include that list of do's and don'ts I just went through.
  Be positive in your answers. This is your opportunity to tell the 
public what a great job you are doing.
  In Bosnia?
  We are trained, ready and fully prepared to conduct peace operations.
  Now here is where it starts to sound like we want our soldiers to be 
automatons, maybe ``Coneheads from the planet Remulac.'' ``We are 
trained, ready and fully prepared to conduct peace operations.''
  Here is another good one. We are not here to fight, but we have the 
capability when required to enforce the treaty and to protect 
ourselves.
  Another: We are disciplined and trained force. We understand our 
mission and the rulings of engagement.
  Another: U.S. forces have a long tradition of working with the United 
Nations and NATO. We are confident in our abilities to work together in 
this mission.

  Many soldiers privately expressed dislike of Mr. Clinton, who avoided 
service in the military during the Vietnam War. One soldier said he 
lost all respect for President after he learned about Mr. Clinton's 
efforts to avoid being drafted. One Lt. Colonel confided that he 
disliked the President, and was careful not to express his opinions 
when enlisted personnel were around.
  Good. Do not, colonel.
  Another captain, I think I will not use his name, a spokesman for the 
Army in Hungary, referred questions about the pamphlet to another 
captain, he is in a world of hurt, so I will not mention his name 
either, who took part in writing the guidelines. He would not return a 
telephone call.
  Now, this reporter, an excellent reporter, I might add, told me that 
the men ride around in their Humvees sitting on one leg. They pull one 
leg up under them so if they have the misfortune to hit a land mine, 
they will at least salvage one leg. Guess what? John Martin Begosh, who 
is now recuperating at home with part of his foot torn away, severe 
injuries to his lower leg, I understand from this reporter was sitting 
on his foot when his Humvee hit that land mine, and it saved the leg 
that he was keeping under him on top of a piece of armor plating to 
protect his body from a land mine.
  The three British soldiers and the Swedish soldier were not so lucky. 
They all died a few days ago. We are all holding our breath, hoping 
that will not happen to one of our Americans.
  Now, we had a Conference today, with the 236 Republicans, I think 
just about everybody was there, and this issue of Michael New, what 
Clinton demanded be stripped out of the defense authorization bill, and 
I left out something I had worked very hard on, and that was this whole 
Bosnia operation, no U.S. troops under foreign command.
  You will recall I brought an amendment up the hard way, all the way 
through conference, battling all the way, without help from the 
leadership from either House in the majority party, brought it to the 
Floor, and shocked the leadership here by almost cutting off the funds 
to Bosnia. My amendment got 210 votes to 218. I had some of my best 
conservative friends in this House take orders beyond what they wanted 
to do and voted against me. I would have only needed 4 votes to tie 
that and the Speaker to vote with me to win 215 to 214.

                              {time}  2130

  Mr. Speaker, 13 lieutenants went the other way, lieutenants of the 
leadership. So there were things that maybe I was not aware of on deals 
that had been made to soften the budget deal when it fell apart anyway, 
that this House would not stand in the way of Mr. Clinton's 
unconstitutional prerogative to send our troops anyway. He wanted it. 
His win.
  This whole thing started by an offhanded comment 2 years ago that he 
said he would give 25,000 troops to the U.N. to help extract the U.N. 
forces that were there, the way we used 15,000 to extract in a fighting 
withdrawal. We did not have to shoot, our forces from the failed U.N. 
mission in Somalia.
  So today at the conference it came up. Some of the freshmen said, 
what actually did Clinton write to Colonel Holmes, the Bataan Death 
March survivor, head of the ROTC in Arkansas? I told the conference 
that I would put it in the Record again tonight for the twelfth time, 
and I would also put in Colonel Holmes's letter 23 years later to the 
American people. And I think this time I will reverse the order.
  This is a letter from Colonel Eugene Holmes. I had dinner with him a 
year 

[[Page H1210]]
ago this month on the 24th, and his lovely wife Irene. He still is as 
tall at 6-foot-4 and distinguished looking as he ever was as an Army 
officer when he was captured on Bataan. Survived the Bataan Death 
March. Ditched an order to join the infamous prison ships that we 
inadvertently bombed killing almost 5,000 of the men who had survived 
2\1/2\ years of torturous captivity by the Japanese. He did not go. His 
friends died and he survived.
  Here is what he wrote September 7, 1992. It was published in the 
aforementioned great newspaper, The Washington Times. No other outlet 
in the country would publish this letter. I have never heard of it 
being published in a single newspaper anywhere in our wonderful 50 
States except The Washington Times:
  September 7, 1992, memorandum for the record. Subject, Bill Clinton 
and the University of Arkansas ROTC program. Each page is signed. The 
news media circulated rumors that he was near death. He is healthy, as 
my dinner attested to a year ago. And he just did not want to hassle 
with sharper media types. He put the truth out as he saw it. They 
claimed his daughter wrote this. She did not. He wrote it. And if this 
man had more witnesses he would have won the Medal of Honor. He holds 
the second highest honor in the United States, the Distinguished 
Service Cross.
  To the American people, but nobody knew it, there have been many 
unanswered question as to the circumstances surrounding Bill Clinton's 
involvement with the ROTC department at the University of Arkansas. 
Prior to this time, I have not felt the necessity for discussing the 
details. The reason I have not done so before is my poor physical 
health, a consequence of participation in the Bataan Death March and 
subsequent three-and-a-half year interment in Japanese POW camps has 
precluded me from getting into what I felt was unnecessary involvement.
  However, present polls show, September 1992, that there is imminent 
danger to our country of a draft dodger becoming the Commander in Chief 
of the armed forces of the United States. While it is true, as Mr. 
Clinton has stated, that there were many others who avoided serving 
their country in the Vietnam war, they are not aspiring to be President 
of the United States.
  The tremendous implications of the possibility of his becoming 
Commander in Chief of the United States armed forces compels me now to 
comment on the facts concerning Mr. Clinton's evasion of the draft. 
This account would not have been imperative had Bill Clinton been 
completely honest to the American public about this matter. But, as Mr. 
Clinton replied on a news conference this evening, September 5, 1992, 
after being asked another particular about his dodging the draft, 
quote, almost everyone concerned with these incidents are dead. I have 
no more comments to make.

  An aside here: that was not true. The lady head of the draft board 
said that he told her that ``I am too educated to serve as an enlisted 
man.''
  Colonel Holmes continues: Since I may be the only living person, he 
did not know he was not the only one, who can give a firsthand account 
of what actually transpired, I am obliged by love for my country and my 
sense of duty to divulge actually what happened and make it a matter of 
record.
  Keep in mind, Mr. Speaker, about 20 Americans died in his arms or in 
his influence those 3\1/2\ years of Japanese brutal captivity. ``Mr. 
Clinton came to see me in my home in 1969 to discuss his desire to 
enroll in the ROTC program at the University of Arkansas.''
  Another important footnote: I asked Colonel Holmes why he remembered 
this one student over all those years because he also commanded the 
ROTC at the University of San Francisco. He said this was the only 
student that ever came to see him in 10 years in all those years. He 
said he did not let him in his home but spoke to him in the back and 
front yard back and forth as the Colonel continued gardening. We 
engaged in an extensive, approximately 2-hour interview. At no time 
during this long conversation about his desire to join the program did 
he inform me of his involvement, participation, and actual organizating 
of protests against the United States' involvement in Southeast Asia. 
He was shrewd enough to realize, had I been aware of his activities, he 
would not have been accepted in the ROTC program as a potential officer 
in the United States Army.
  What Colonel Holmes did not know, and I informed him of it, was that 
Clinton has already flunked his naval officer's test and then in 
England at Lakenheath Air Force Base he flunked his Air Force officer's 
test and then decided no way was he so educated. Even though he was not 
going to classes at Oxford, but ditching them to demonstrate against 
our policy in all of Southeast Asia, that included Laos and Cambodia, 
he decided he was not going to serve as an enlisted man.
  The next day I began to receive phone calls regarding Bill Clinton's 
draft status. I was informed by the draft board that it was of interest 
to Senator Fulbright's office that Bill Clinton, a Rhodes scholar--that 
should read Rhodes candidate scholar--only three people in the class 
failed to complete the program. He was one of the three. Another was a 
Mississippi student who has since died of AIDS who Clinton brags that 
the greatest thing he did was write a letter to help this Mississippi 
student to dodge the draft, that he should be admitted to the ROTC 
program.
  I received several such calls from the chief of staff of the 
governor's office. His wife thought Fulbright had called and he 
corrected her, that, no, the chief of staff had. The general message 
conveyed by the head of the draft board to me was that the Senator 
Fulbright's office was putting pressure on the draft board, and they 
needed my help. I then made the necessary arrangements to enroll Mr. 
Clinton in the ROTC program in the University of Arkansas.
  Remember Clinton had already graduated a year out of the Jesuit 
Catholic Georgetown University. He had already had a year in England 
ditching class. And so he was going to have to go back and take ROTC 
classes with undergraduates, go to one summer camp, and on a short 
abbreviated program because he would have been training for a lawyer 
there and would join the JAG Corps. It was a special program that the 
Colonel told Bob Dornan had just been created in the nick of time for 
Clinton.

  Holmes continues: I was not saving, he is quoting from Clinton's 
letter, I was not saving him from serving his country, as he 
erroneously thanked me for in his letter from England, dated December 
3, 1969. I was making it possible for a Rhodes scholar to serve in the 
military as an officer. Lawyer, eventually. In retrospect I see that 
Mr. Clinton had no intention of following through with this agreement 
to join the Army ROTC program at the University of Arkansas or to 
attend the University of Arkansas law school ever. I had explained to 
him the necessity of enrolling at the University of Arkansas as a 
student in order to be eligible to take the ROTC program as an 
undergraduate at the university. He never enrolled at the University of 
Arkansas, but instead enrolled at Yale after going back to Oxford.
  I believe that he purposely deceived me using the possibility of 
joining the ROTC as a ploy to work with the draft board to delay his 
induction to get a new draft classification. Actually, he destroyed and 
suppressed his induction. I never heard of that in my entire life. The 
December 3 letter written to me by Mr. Clinton was subsequently taken 
from the file by Lieutenant Colonel Clint Jones, my executive officer, 
and was placed into the ROTC files so that a record would be available 
in case the applicant should again petition to enter the ROTC program. 
Never.
  Important footnote, Mr. Speaker: Colonel Holmes never kept this 
letter over 23 years. Lieutenant Colonel Clint Jones, as much to hurt 
Colonel Holmes as to hurt Clinton, kept the letter. Clinton had some 
confederates break into the ROTC building, steal all of his records 
when he was getting ready to run for Congress in 1974, 4 years later. 
And all of those records, including the original of the letter, 
disappeared, or a copy. The original had been purloined by Lieutenant 
Colonel Clint Jones to hurt Colonel Holmes.
  Fascinating piece of investigative work by yours truly that nobody in 
the media knows to this day. And why? Because Colonel Holmes did not 
like the way Clint Jones was downgrading the captains who were 
military, what do they call them, professors of military 

[[Page H1211]]
science. And he was mistreating a Korean decorated veteran who was a 
master sergeant making him sharpen pencils and carry out wastebaskets. 
And this ultimate statuesque Distinguished Service Cross colonel, 
Bataan Death March survivor said: Colonel Jones, I am taking the 
sergeant out from under your control and also all of these young 
captains. I will rate them. You are downgrading their efficiency 
reports. The whole system has slid to the high side up in the Pentagon 
and you are costing these people getting promotions. So that is what 
caused this bad blood.
  Colonel Holmes continues: The information in that letter, the 
infamous letter, alone would have restricted Bill Clinton from ever 
qualifying to be an officer in the United States military. To this day, 
do the men in Tuzla know that? To this day, he could never apply to 
even get a secret clearance to serve in the CIA, the FBI, any police 
department, most of them, and never the Coast Guard Academy or any of 
our four military services ever. This letter ended that forever.
  Only by getting elected to the House, the Senate, or the Presidency 
or to be a governor or a ROTC program would he never in his whole life 
have access to top secret material. Even more significant was Clinton's 
lack of veracity in purposely defrauding the military by deceiving me 
both in concealing his antimilitary activities overseas and his 
counterfeit intentions for later military service. These actions cause 
me to question both his patriotism and his integrity.
  Mr. Speaker, if that line had been written about Ronald Reagan or 
George Bush, certainly Richard Nixon, it would have been on the evening 
news over and over and over again. I read it again: These actions cause 
me to question both Mr. Clinton's patriotism and his integrity. This 
from a Bataan Death March survivor.
  When I consider the caliber, the bravery and the patriotism of the 
fine young soldiers whose deaths I have witnessed and whose funerals I 
have attended, when I reflect on not only the willingness but the 
eagerness that so many of them displayed in their earnest desire to 
serve their country, and he told me story after story with their names 
that he and Irene recall to this day it is untenable and 
incomprehensible to me that a man who was not merely unwilling to serve 
his country but actually protested against its military should ever be 
in the position of Commander in Chief of our armed forces.
  I write this declaration not only for the living and future 
generations, but for those who fought and died for this country. If 
space and time permitted, I would include the names of the ones I knew 
and fought with. And along with them I would mention my younger 
brother, Bob, who was killed during World War II and is buried in 
Cambridge, England. He was killed at the age of 23, about the age Bill 
Clinton was when he was over in England protesting the war. He had the 
age exact.
  Another footnote Mr. Speaker, when I went over for the 50th 
anniversary of Normandy, we went to a ceremony in Cambridge, England. I 
looked for Bob Holmes's grave and found it. He died on board a B-17 
coming over the English Channel. This wall of all the missing hundreds 
and hundreds of men who crashed into part of Europe and were never 
found or died in the English channel. Bob's remains are buried there.
  I visited the grave, then went back to my seat with my wife. And then 
in came the Clintons, waving at the crowd. A Spitfire, Mustang and B-17 
flew over at a very low altitude, pushed the minimums. There was hardly 
a dry eye in the place. All I could think of is over there is Bob 
Holmes's grave; died at 23 for his country. And here is the first draft 
dodger to ever serve in the position of our Commander in Chief.
  I go back to Colonel Eugene J. Holmes's concluding paragraph: I have 
agonized over whether or not to submit this statement to the American 
people. But I realize that even though I served my country by being in 
the military for over 32 years and having gone through the ordeal of 
months of combat under the worst of conditions followed by years of 
imprisonment by the Japanese, it is not enough. I am writing these 
comments to let everyone know that I love my country more than I do my 
own personal security and well-being.
  He was worried, Mr. Speaker, releasing this letter: I will go to my 
grave loving these United States of America and the liberty for which 
so many men have fought and died. Because of my poor physical condition 
this will be my final statement.
  He is actually in very good physical condition. He did not want to 
hassle with the liberal dominant media culture, and I can understand 
that.
  I will make no further comments to any of the media regarding this 
letter.
  He did not want to tell the Lt. Col. Clint Jones story. And he 
released this letter, and the media had already made their choice 
between Bush and Clinton, so they ignored it.

                              {time}  2145

  So they ignored it.
  Now, here is the infamous letter, and it gives new meaning to the 
word ``infamous.'' All of the freshmen and sophomores wanted me to go 
put this in again; they did not want me to go look it up from 1991 or 
1993, where I have put it in about 10 times. Here is the letter that 
Bill Clinton wrote to Col. Eugene Holmes, Director of the ROTC program, 
University of Arkansas, on December 3, 1969.
  He drew a low lottery number, 319, I believe, on the 1st; applied for 
Yale on the 2d, still being mentored by all of his political friends in 
Arkansas; and on the 3d he wrote this letter to Holmes and it is filled 
with inaccuracies.
  ``I am sorry to be so long in writing, Colonel. I know I promised to 
let you hear from me at least once a month.''
  Colonel Holmes does not remember that promise at all. He did not 
think he was going back to Oxford; he thought he was going back to 
Arkansas.
  ``And from now on you will.''
  Never wrote again.
  ``But I have to have some time to think about this first letter. 
Almost daily, since my return to England, I have thought about writing, 
about what I want to and ought to say.''
  Pause.
  On Lincoln's birthday, Feb. 12, 1992, with Clinton sitting there, 
having been given this letter after it popped up in the press, having 
been given this letter by Rich Kaplan, one of Clinton's Renaissance, 
Hilton Head, SC friends, he gave this letter to Clinton, Rich Kaplan.
  Head of ABC Evening News to this day, Peter Jennings, he had been Ted 
Koppel's producer for 14 years, he called Ted and said, ``Ted, put 
Clinton on.'' Clinton was running third in New Hampshire and in free 
fall. And since I am running 5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th, I know what that 
must have felt like. He had spent the money that I do not have.
  And Rich Kaplan gave the letter to Clinton to prepare for 3 days. 
Koppel puts him on, the whole show, and goes into overtime as though it 
is Margaret Thatcher or some world leader. While Clinton sits there, 
biting his lower lip, Koppel read the entire letter. That ate up the 
whole first part of the show, which I am going to do now.
  I will continue, second paragraph. ``First, I want to thank you, not 
just for saving me from the draft, but for being so kind and decent to 
me last summer,'' 1969, ``when I was as low as I have ever been. One 
thing which made the bond we struck,'' 2 hours in his garden, ``in good 
faith somewhat palatable to me was my high regard for you personally. 
In retrospect, it seems that the admiration might not have been mutual 
had you known a little bit more about me, about my political beliefs 
and activities.''
  Footnote: This was no Joan Baez peace-worker who said ``A pox on both 
of your houses'' and would quote St. Francis: ``Where there is hatred, 
let me so love.'' No, no, he was pro-Hanoi, pro-Ho Chi Minh, the George 
Washington of his country.
  We, the interventionists, the imperialists. We know the whole routine 
of these teachings that Clinton conducted at the University of London, 
School of Economics, after hours. That is the school where JFK spent 
some time.
  He says, ``At least you might have thought me more fit for the draft 
than for ROTC. Let me try to explain. As you know, I worked for 2 years 
in a very minor position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I 
did it for the experience and the salary, but also for the opportunity, 
however small, of 

[[Page H1212]]
working every day against a war I opposed and despised, with a depth of 
feeling I have reserved solely for racism in America before Vietnam. I 
marched with Martin Luther King.''
  I can respect that, but he was just a 16-year-old.
  ``I did not take the matter lightly, but studied it carefully, and 
there was a time when not many people had more information about 
Vietnam at hand than I did.''
  Good grief. What a braggadocio, foolish statement.
  ``I have written and spoken and marched against the war.''
  He did not tell any of this to Colonel Holmes.
  Mr. Speaker, before I continue my Special Order, let me add my words, 
that I too have enjoyed the friendship of Mr. Kweisi Mfume, and also 
can state emphatically that I have never met a harder-working Member of 
Congress or a better gentleman, or just a more upbeat person that saw 
no challenge in this life that he did not think he could solve 
personally or that all of us could not solve together.
  You have taken on a very tough job with one of the oldest and most 
respected civil rights organizations in America, the NAACP, and I think 
that you will bring it to its heights of new glory. I am going to miss 
you, Kweisi, and I am sorry that I was ahead of you. I was going to let 
you have your Special Order first, or course.
  Mr. Speaker, I think I have 20 minutes left. Let me speed this up.
  Here is Bill Clinton, writing from somewhere in Yale. I think he was 
sleeping on Strobe Talbott's floor, 43 Lechner Road; he did not even 
register to live in a dormitory at Oxford, never went to class; took 
his Rhodes scholarship money and never pursued it, never tested and 
left for Yale in the spring of 1970 after a curious trip to Moscow, 
Prague, Helsinki, Leningrad, and other Scandinavian countries.
  So here he is writing somewhere. Strobe Talbott, by the way, is 
number 2 at the State Department; he had hoped to make him number 1. 
That is why they put in Warren Christopher, but they did not plan on 
Jesse Helms becoming chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the 
Senate. So everything is kind of dead in the water.
  Clinton continues in the third paragraph of the Dec. 3, 1969 letter: 
``Let me try to explain,'' to Colonel Holmes. ``As you know, I worked 
for 2 years in a very minor position on the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee. I did it for the experience and the salary, but also for the 
opportunity, however small, of working every day against a war I 
opposed and despised with a depth of feeling I had reserved solely for 
racism in America before Vietnam. I did not take the matter lightly, 
but studied it carefully, and there was a time when not many people''--
I have been over there eight times as a journalist--``had more 
information about Vietnam than I did.''
  He has never been there.
  ``I have written and spoken and marched against the war. One of the 
national organizers of the Vietnam moratorium is a close friend of 
mine.''
  I guess that would be David Mixner, who helped raise $4 million in 
the homosexual community.
  ``After I left Arkansas last summer, I went to Washington to work in 
the national headquarters of the moratorium,'' right before he met with 
Colonel Holmes and after, and then he went up to Martha's Vineyard for 
another big organizing session.
  ``Then to England to organize the Americans here for demonstrations 
October 15 and November 16.''
  One demonstration was the new Mobe committee; the other was the 
moratorium committee. I do not know which was which.
  ``Interlocked with the war is the draft issue, which I did not begin 
to consider separately until early 1968.''
  Yes, graduating from Georgetown when they had announced there would 
be no more deferments for graduate studies. How he swung that, no one 
knows.
  ``For a law seminar at Georgetown, I wrote a paper on the legal 
arguments for and against allowing within the Selective Service System 
the classification of Selective Conscientious Objection for those 
opposed to participation in a particular war, not simply to 
`participation in war in any form.' ''
  Mr. Speaker, imagine if Specialist Michael New had quoted from this 
letter and used 23-year-old Bill Clinton, who I believe is a year older 
than he is, to use this as his rationale why he would serve honorably 
but not go to Macedonia in that particular situation wearing the U.N. 
powder-blue beret.
  Back to the Clinton letter. ``From my work I came to believe that 
draft system itself is illegitimate. No government really rooted in 
limited parliamentary democracy should have the power to make its 
citizens fight and kill and die in a war they may oppose, a war which 
even possibly may be wrong, a war which in any case does not involve 
immediately the peace and freedom of the Nation.''
  Mr. Speaker, does Bosnia involve immediately the peace and freedom of 
the Nation? Young people would quickly say, I do not think so.
  Continuing the letter: ``The draft was justified in World War II 
because the life of the people collectively was at stake. Individuals 
had to fight''--
  No, they did not. We had 6 million draft dodgers in World War II.
  --``if the Nation was to survive.''
  No, that is wrong. We had about a million and a half. We had 6 
million people who were turned away. Out of the 18 million drafted, 6 
million were told, you are not properly schooled or you are too heavy, 
you are too skinny, or you cannot do enough pushups or chinups. You are 
too weak. Six million were turned away of the 18 million that were 
drafted, and then lots were turned away that tried to join.

  Some came back and back and back and made it, even with one eye, even 
with curved spines. Those that really wanted to serve in many cases got 
by. Roger Young won the Medal of Honor on the island of New Georgia in 
the Solomons, and he only had one eye. Took his eye test like that, 
both with the same eye.
  Now, he continues: ``That individuals had to fight, if the Nation was 
to survive, for the lives of their countrymen and their way of life. 
Vietnam is no such case, nor was Korea an example where, in my opinion, 
certain military action was justified, but the draft was not, for the 
reasons stated above.''
  Do not think I did not think of that line, and why I left before he 
spoke at my war where I was in pilot training when it ended, 
mercifully, at the dedication of the Korean Memorial on its 43d 
anniversary last July 27, 1995, 42d anniversary of it ending.
  ``Because of my opposition to the draft and the war, I am in great 
sympathy with those who are not willing to fight, kill, and maybe die 
for their country; i.e., the particular policy of a particular 
government.''
  Thank heaven, Michael New had the integrity not to use that line, Mr. 
Speaker.
  ``Right or wrong. Two of my friends at Oxford are conscientious 
objectors. I wrote a letter of recommendation for one of them to his 
Mississippi draft board, a letter which I am more proud of than 
anything else I wrote at Oxford last year.''
  He did not write much; he never went to class, Mr. Speaker.
  ``One of my roommates is a draft resister who is possibly under 
indictment.''
  This is the fellow that committed suicide whose picture is in 
Clinton's bedroom.
  ``And may never be able to go home again. He is one of the bravest, 
best men I know. His country needs men like him more than they know. 
That he is considered a criminal is an obscenity.''
  The problem was he came home, he turned himself in. The FBI said, we 
have no more interest in you, the war is winding down. His family was 
not happy with what he had done, they had a military tradition, and 
that is when, let me see if I recall his name, Frank Aller, A-L-L-E-R, 
tragically committed suicide two years after this in 1971 when no one 
was looking for him. Hardly a brave act when he could have gone on with 
his life.
  ``The decision not to be a resister and the related subsequent 
decisions were the most difficult of my life. I decided to accept the 
draft in spite of my beliefs for one reason: To maintain my political 
viability within the system.''
  Those are the words that Ted Koppel repeated: ``To maintain my 
political viability within the system.'' The fact is, he never went 
back into the draft system.
  ``For years I have worked to prepare myself for a political life 
characterized 

[[Page H1213]]
by both practical, political ability and concern for rapid social 
progress. It is a life I feel compelled to try to lead. I do not think 
our system of government is by definition corrupt, however dangerous 
and inadequate it has been in recent years.''
       The society may be corrupt, but that is not the same thing. 
     And if that is true, we are all finished, anyway. When the 
     draft came, despite political convictions, I was having a 
     hard time facing the prospect of fighting a war I had been 
     fighting against, and that is why I contacted you.

                              {time}  2200

  Law school and being a JAG, a Judge Advocate, is hardly being under 
fire.

       ROTC was the only way left in which I could possibly but 
     not positively avoid both Vietnam and resistance.

  In other words, he did not have the courage to be identified as a 
resistance person.

       Going on with my education, even coming back to England, 
     played no part in my decision to join ROTC. I am back here 
     and would have been at Arkansas Law School because there is 
     nothing else I can do. In fact, I would liked to have been 
     able to take a year out perhaps to teach in some small 
     college or work on some community action project and in the 
     process to decide whether to attend law school or graduate 
     school and how to begin putting what I have learned to use.

  Well, Sergeant Jimmy Holt of Hope, Arkansas goes missing in Vietnam, 
not found to this day.

       But the particulars of my personal life are not nearly as 
     important to me as the principles involved. After I signed 
     the ROTC letter of intent to you, I began to wonder whether 
     the compromise I had made with myself was not more 
     objectionable then the draft would have been because I had no 
     intention in the ROTC program in itself and all I seem to 
     have done was protect myself from physical harm.

  Mr. Speaker, in other words, he did not want to be a lawyer and wear 
the Army uniform. He wanted to go to Yale Law School and not to 
Arkansas Law School.
  ``Also I began to think I had deceived you, not by lies, there were 
none''--that is not what Colonel Holmes wrote--``but by failing to tell 
you all the things I'm writing now. I doubt then that I had the mental 
coherence to articulate them.''
  The Colonel told me he was very articulate as a 23-year-old student, 
following him from the front yard to the back yard during two hours of 
gardening, back and forth.
  Back to the letter.

       At that time after we had made our agreement and you had 
     sent my 1-D deferment to my draft board, the anguish and loss 
     of my self-respect and self-confidence really set in.

  I bet, Mr. Speaker.

       I hardly slept for weeks and kept going by eating 
     compulsively.

  Does that sound familiar? What were they doing in Vietnam? Sleeping, 
and kept going by eating compulsively?

       I read until exhaustion brought sleep. Finally on September 
     12 I stayed up all night writing a letter to the chairman of 
     my draft board.

  And preparing for the demonstrations on October 15 and November 16 
that he mentioned in the first paragraph.
  ``I sent a letter to the chairman of my draft board saying basically 
what is in the preceding paragraph, thanking him for trying to help me 
in a case where he really couldn't and stating that I couldn't do the 
ROTC after all''--I can't do it--``and would he please draft me as soon 
as possible.
  Nobody has ever found that letter, I doubt it was ever written. So 
does Colonel Holmes. Oh.

       I never mailed the letter. But I did carry it on me every 
     day until I got on the plane to return to England. I didn't 
     mail the letter because I didn't see in the end how my going 
     in the Army and maybe going to Vietnam would achieve anything 
     except the feeling that I had punished myself and gotten what 
     I had deserved.

  And maybe given the integrity to tell young men to go die in Somalia, 
19 of them, and to tell them to go drive over land mines in Bosnia.

       So I came back to England to try to make something of the 
     second year of my Rhodes scholarship.

  Footnote. And ditched every class and flunked out and left.

       ``And that is where I am now, writing to you, because you 
     have been good to me and have a right to know what I think 
     and feel. I am writing too in the hope that my telling this 
     one story will help you to understand more clearly how so 
     many fine people have come to find themselves still loving 
     their country but loathing the military.

  Loathing the military,

       To which you and other good mean have devoted years, 
     lifetimes to the best service you could give.''

  In Vietnam, people who went a few steps further than Clinton were 
rolling grenades into the tents of what they call lifers, sergeants and 
officers from the academies who were giving their life to military 
service, and killed them, and the names are on the wall, only known to 
God how many, but I know of at least 10, men that were murdered by the 
man under them because of both drugs and the poisonous atmosphere, some 
of which was developed in the other body and this body during this 
incredible war in Vietnam.

  He says,

       Loathing the military to which you and other men have 
     devoted years, lifetimes to the best service you could give. 
     To many of us, it is no longer clear what is service and what 
     is disservice, or if it is clear, the conclusion is likely to 
     be illegal.

  I debated men who had the guts to go to jail, and I respected them, 
like Joan Baez's husband David Harris, student body president, 
Stanford. It is the people who hid out like this and let others go in 
their place and then wanted to be commander-in-chief some day that 
perplex me.
  Closing paragraph.

       Forgive the length of this letter, Colonel. There was much 
     to say. There is still a lot to be said but it can wait. 
     Please say hello to Colonel Jones for me. Merry Christmas. 
     Sincerely, Bill Clinton.

  That would be Lieutenant Colonel Clint Jones, who stole this letter 
out of the ROTC files to keep it and use it at some point against 
Colonel Holmes because Holmes had disciplined Colonel Jones, and when 
the files were stolen from the ROTC building and destroyed--and we are 
looking for a lot of missing files this day, a quarter of a century 
later--Colonel Jones gets a good-bye and a Merry Christmas from Bill 
Clinton.
  Mr. Speaker, one of the networks attacked me tonight, I think 
unfairly, so I do not have to ask for a point of personal privilege. I 
will fix it right now.
  It is over an amendment that I have on the defense authorization bill 
to give an honorable discharge and 6 months to get their affairs in 
order to everybody who has tragically contracted the AIDS HIV virus. 
Surgeons General and the Surgeon Admiral of the Navy, which handles the 
Marine Corps, and the Air Force and the Army have all told me, 
sometimes on the record, but always off the record, that they do not 
think people who have the HIV virus, who cannot contribute to the 
walking blood bank in the military, who have to be brought home from 
every country in the world where they serve, taken out of their 
aircraft, their helicopters, off the ships, out of the submarines, out 
of the Abrams tanks, the fighting vehicles, the Humvees, nobody 
in Bosnia, Somalia or Haiti carrying the HIV virus, that they all have 
to be brought back stateside, for the Marines and the Navy and only two 
wonderful States with a high tourist budget, California and Virginia, 
have to be within 300 miles of a hospital for treatment, and then since 
they have been taken out of a combat-ready job and brought home from 
overseas, we fire, we pink slip with an honorable discharge but not 6 
months other people who are healthy, who are part of the walking blood 
bank, are trainable for combat and can go be deployed overseas any day 
of the week. Those people are let out of the military so that these 
people can be trained at our tax expense into their new job.

  Mr. Speaker, I knew when I saw the article in the Post yesterday that 
this woman--and I must take her at her word and believe her, even 
though she is anonymous, using a false name, Marie--was in the ``Post'' 
saying that her husband contracted AIDS through unprotected sex, the 
implication is cheating on her, and that is a tragedy, brought it home 
to her.
  Remember, this Congress has done nothing in a decade to force doctors 
to call the roommate, the live-in girlfriend, the homosexual roommate, 
the fiancee or the wife of a person who has the HIV virus and tell them 
that that person can kill them. I have read that it takes about 700 
normal intercourse events to contract heterosexual contact AIDS, and no 
doctor in this country, and the chief doctor in the military, Dr. 
Joseph, who sent me a book that is frightening about his battle with 
the New York health services, 

[[Page H1214]]
not to win this battle, and that we still have not won it.
  So the husband came home, the doctor could not call the wife, he 
infected her, and then he dies and widows her with one child. 
Fortunately the child was conceived, because breast milk is one way you 
transmit the HIV virus, and now she is a sergeant, 10 years, left 
alone.
  All I could do was say that she must be patriotic and accept this 
honorable discharge 6 months from now, and not expect us to keep 1,100 
people on active duty when the doctors in the military tell me that the 
largest group of the 3 is probably 500 or more people, young people, 
who are conned by our deteriorating culture into sticking a dirty 
needle in their arm, and that to help a woman in this tragic situation 
we have to keep 500 people who broke the Uniform Code of Military 
Justice, who played Russian roulette with a dirty drug needle and lost, 
that they get cover because of this one tragic case?

  There are no more tainted blood people left on active duty. The last 
one died 3 years ago. We have all learned on this floor, from the 
limited debate on the worst plague in American history, almost going to 
pass the flu epidemic in 1919 that killed millions of senior citizens, 
we are getting there.
  We have now lost more young men in their prime of life than were 
killed in combat in World War II. Three hundred twelve thousand in 
World War II, depending on your encyclopedia or your military records, 
350,000 to AIDS if you put bisexuals and drug users, a mixed category, 
in with homosexuals. And then we add about 10 or 20,000 cases, Dr. 
Koop, the Surgeon General, told me, that were attributed to the primary 
cause of death, pneumonia, dementia, heart failure, cancer, rather than 
put down that it was AIDS that broke down their immune system and 
caused the death. So they add another 10 or 20,000 on there from 1980 
through 1983 when doctors mercifully, it is understandable, tried to 
help the family keep some privacy on what killed their young loved male 
adult and some few women.
  So here we are with the networks structuring this thing as though, 
and they keep saying this, the Army Times said it, the networks have 
said it, the Post said it and the New York Times calling any of us who 
voted for this, which is a majority of the House and Senate and the 
majority of conferees, calling us anti-AIDS bigots. They keep saying 
these men stay on the job and that they are healthy.
  No, by definition they are not healthy, that is why they cannot give 
blood. By definition we in this Congress added them to the Americans 
with Disabilities Act. Every HIV person in this country is considered 
disabled, so they are not healthy.
  Then they stay on the job, and this is where I want to stay down and 
plead with people to listen. They do not stay on the job if they are a 
pilot, a helicopter pilot, on a ship, a sub or in a tank or in an 
artillery unit or a paratrooper or special forces. They are given a 
safe job in the States, never to be deployed again.
  Mr. Speaker, I will put in my remarks and several other articles that 
I wrote about the Clinton letter comparing it to the letter of Major 
Sullivan Ballew in the Civil War, and I will put in my explanation of 
why this is fair, and it has to do with readiness, only to give an 
honorable discharge and 6 months to prepare to go into civilian life 
and special health treatment that a car accident victim does not get if 
they have a career-ending injury while serving in uniform in our 
military services.
  Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record my news releases and some key 
letters on this HIV-military controversy:

Dornan Provision ON HIV/Combat Readiness Passes as Part of Fiscal Year 
                      1996 Defense Conference Bill

       ``The necessity of retaining personnel who have been found 
     to be HIV positive imposes significant problems for all the 
     services, but especially the Navy. . . . The immediate 
     discharge of HIV infected members would increase personnel 
     readiness. . . .'' commented Admiral Frank Kelso, former 
     Chief of Naval Operations, in response to an inquiry by 
     Congressman Robert K. Dornan of California. Dornan, Chairman 
     of the House Subcommittee on Military Personnel, successfully 
     passed a provision in the FY 1996 Defense Conference which 
     would accomplish this goal.
       Dornan's legislation would require discharge of HIV+ 
     military personnel, who, because of their condition, are 
     unable to deploy overseas or participate in most other combat 
     requirements such as flying aircraft, serving on board ship, 
     or operating as a ground infantryman. A Pentagon quality-of-
     life task force echoed Dornan's concerns in a recent report 
     which stated, ``The Defense Department should enforce non-
     deployable policies.'' Currently, HIV-infected members, 
     though permanently non-deployable, are allowed to remain on 
     active duty until they develop full-blown aids.
       ``This is an issue of readiness and fairness,'' said 
     Dornan. ``In a time of increased defense downsizing, we 
     cannot afford to keep on active duty personnel who are not 
     fully deployable worldwide. We also must be fair to those who 
     are fully deployable. They should not have to spend 
     additional time away from friends and family because they 
     have to remain overseas in place of someone who is not 
     deployable.''
       Dornan points to the statement of an active duty Marines 
     Corps company commander, who wrote, ``By not being able to 
     rotate from our non-deploying company, my one HIV Marine kept 
     another Marine from leaving a deploying unit. This may not 
     seem like much to some Congressmen. . ., but I'm sure it 
     meant a lot to the guy and his family who had just spent 54% 
     of their last three years separated due to normal deployment 
     patterns.''
       The defense conference report will now be sent to the 
     President and hopefully signed into law.
                                                                    ____

         Department of the Navy, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps,
                                    Washington, DC, July 23, 1993.
     Hon. Robert K. Dornan,
     House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Dornan: Thank you for your letter of July 1, 1993, 
     concerning Marine Corps policy governing HIV positive 
     servicemembers.
       Navy and Marine Corps regulations require that discharge 
     proceedings be initiated through the disability evaluation 
     system in cases of HIV-1 positive servicemembers who are 
     found unfit for duty. Members who are found fit for duty are 
     retained; however, they must be assigned within the United 
     States to a unit that is not normally programmed for 
     deployment. Further, they must be assigned within 300 miles 
     of a Medical Treatment Facility (MTF) designated by the 
     Surgeon General that is capable of providing the care 
     required by HIV-1 positive members. The MTF's designated are 
     the Naval Hospitals at San Diego and Oakland, California, 
     Bethesda, Maryland, and Portsmouth, Virginia.
       The costs associated with retaining HIV-1 positive Marines 
     have not yet been analyzed. It must be noted, though, that 
     the total number of HIV-1 positive Marines currently on 
     active duty represents an extremely small percentage of our 
     total force.
       Marines who are HIV-1 positive are not assigned to ship's 
     detachments or to extended deployments afloat, although HIV-1 
     positive officers are not precluded from embarking on ships 
     for short durations for training exercises, or from 
     participating in training deployments within the United 
     States or its territories. Federal Aviation Administration 
     regulations prohibit HIV-1 positive servicemembers from 
     flying aircraft or being certified as pilots. Navy 
     instructions also restrict the assignment of HIV-1 positive 
     aviators to duty as both pilot and aircrew aboard military 
     aircraft. Further limitations on the assignment of HIV-1 
     positive Marines to operational units or specific duties may 
     be established based on the necessity to protect the health 
     and safety of the HIV-1 positive member and of other military 
     personnel.
       Current Department of Defense regulations governing 
     physical disability prohibit the determination of unfitness 
     based solely on a servicemember's inability to perform his or 
     her duties worldwide, a provision that does not apply 
     exclusively to HIV-1 positive servicemembers. The Marine 
     Corps supports a recent recommendation by the Director, Naval 
     Counsel of Personnel Boards that this prohibition be removed.
       We consider this a manpower issue vice a medical issue. The 
     deployed time for certain Marine units currently exceeds the 
     Navy's guidelines, and the retention of non-deployable 
     Marines prevents us from filling those billets with Marines 
     who are worldwide deployable. This not only impacts readiness 
     but also increases the deployment tempo of fully fit Marines.
       I trust this information will be of assistance to you.
           Very Respectfully,

                                             C. E. Mundy, Jr.,

                                       General, U.S. Marine Corps,
     Commandant of the Marine Corps.
                                                                    ____



                                    Chief of Naval Operations,

                                                September 2, 1993.
     Hon. Robert K. Dornan,
     House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Dornan: Thank you for your letter of July 1, 1993, 
     concerning our HIV policy and the problems associated with 
     caring for HIV infected personnel.
       The necessity of retaining personnel who have been found to 
     be HIV positive imposes significant problems for all the 
     Services, but especially Navy. Assignment limitations cause 
     significant disruption in the sea/shore rotation for all our 
     personnel.
       The Department of Defense (DoD) requires assignment of HIV 
     infected service members only within the continental United 
     States 

[[Page H1215]]
     due to the high priority assigned to the continued medical evaluations; 
     Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico lack Navy medical treatment 
     facilities required by HIV infected members.
       HIV infected members are not eligible for service on ships, 
     due to insufficient medical treatment facilities aboard; 
     however, HIV infected members do continue to perform in their 
     rating in shore duty billets in close proximity to adequate 
     medical care. Members who normally are assigned to a flight 
     assignment are grounded when found to be HIV infected. This 
     is consistent with established procedures for other medical 
     conditions. Fifty-five percent of all Navy ratings serve the 
     majority of their careers at sea. All HIV infected members in 
     sea duty intensive ratings no longer take their turn for 
     assignment to a ship, drastically altering an already tight 
     sea/shore rotation schedule. HIV infected Physicians, Nurses, 
     Dentists, Hospital Corpsmen (HM), and Dental Technicians (DT) 
     are not allowed to perform exposure, invasive procedures.
       HIV is an expensive disease to treat. Costs are not limited 
     solely to providing medical care. The average length of time 
     between diagnosis of an HIV infection and medical separation 
     is approximately 4 years. Members are not medically separated 
     until they display clinical illness symptoms.
       An asymptomatic active duty member's medical care consists 
     of an initial hospitalization for a thorough medical 
     evaluation and staging, and periodic reevaluations conducted 
     semiannually. The cost of an initial evaluation is 
     approximately $4,000 and reevaluations cost $2,400. 
     Medications such as AZT cost approximately $2,200 per year. 
     Total lifetime treatment adds up to approximately $208,000. 
     This figure does not include time lost from their assigned 
     duty station, psychological counseling, travel to and from 
     the medical center or the costs of separation.
       The Navy has approximately 787 HIV infected active duty 
     members, 35 officers and 752 enlisted. The average FY-93 cost 
     in pay and benefits to retain one officer is $71,436 and 
     $30,541 for each enlisted member on active duty. The total 
     pay and benefits for the 787 personnel is $25,467,092 for 
     this fiscal year.
       A member found medically unfit for duty is transferred to 
     the Temporary Disability Retirement List (TDRL) and provided 
     a 30 percent minimum disability benefit and continued Navy 
     medical care. We place the member on the Permanent Disability 
     Retirement List (PDRL) and provide a 100 percent disability 
     benefit and continued Navy medical care when the member's 
     condition deteriorates. The Navy has medically retired 1,193 
     HIV infected members since the beginning of the program in 
     1986. An estimated lifetime treatment cost (not including pay 
     and benefits) for all the infected retirees is a total of 
     $248,144,000. Only members who become eligible for the 
     Temporary or Permanent Disability Retirement Lists are 
     provided continued treatment at a Navy medical treatment 
     facility. All members discharged for other reasons are 
     eligible for Veterans Administration care upon separation.
       The immediate discharge of HIV infected members would 
     increase personnel readiness during a time of significant 
     downsizing. Additionally, it would allow the Navy to replace 
     the 787 infected members with members who are healthy and 
     world-wide assignable. Sea/shore rotation schedules would be 
     readjusted, thereby increasing readiness. Discharging these 
     members would place the responsibility of monitoring the 
     physical condition of HIV infected members on the civilian 
     sector.
       If I may be of any further assistance, please do not 
     hesitate to contact me.
           Sincerely,
                                                Frank B. Kelso II,
     Admiral, U.S. Navy.
                                                                    ____

                                                  Non Commissioned


                                          Officers Association

                              of the United States of America,

                                      Alexandria, VA, June 7, 1994
     Hon. Robert K. Dornan,
     House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Dornan: The Non Commissioned Officers Association 
     of the USA (NCOA) strongly supports the proposal contained in 
     the House version of the FY 1995 Defense Authorization Bill 
     (H.R. 4301) that ensures that all members of the military be 
     physically and medically worldwide deployable.
       During a time when manpower levels of the military services 
     have been and continue to be reduced to minimum levels, NCOA 
     believes that the taxpayers of this country should reasonably 
     expect that all servicemembers serving in the military 
     services be able to serve wherever and whenever needed. If 
     necessary readiness capabilities are to be realized from a 
     ``boot-on-the-ground'' standpoint, everyone in uniform must 
     be eligible for deployment under field conditions. NCOA 
     further believes that failure to adhere to such a policy 
     presents false strength indicators and will undoubtedly 
     result in unfair assignment practices and rapidity for those 
     who meet and maintain established deployability criteria.
       NCOA is opposed to any legislative effort to reduce or 
     lessen the deployability requirements of H.R. 4301.
           Sincerely,
     Michael F. Ouellette,
       Sergeant Major, U.S. Army, (Retired),
                                  Director of Legislative Affairs.

  Here is my ``Dear Colleague'' on this, Mr. Speaker:

            Department of Defense or Ministry of Propaganda?

       Dear Colleague: I'm sure you'll share my outrage after 
     reading the following article from the January 29, 1996 
     edition of the Washington Times regarding a ``Media Reference 
     Card'' issued to our troops in Bosnia. This is another 
     blatant attempt by this administration to use our military 
     for purposes other than national security. In this case, U.S. 
     troops--troops risking their lives against land mines and 
     terrorists in the cold of winter--are being directed to tell 
     reporters they have full faith in the President and the 
     United Nations! Besides the article, I'm also including a 
     copy of part of the card itself--Disgusting!
           Sincerely,
                                                 Robert K. Dornan,
                                                 U.S. Congressman.

  Put on a Happy Face, Troops in Bosnia Told--Praise Clinton if Press 
                            Asks, Guide Says

       Taszar Air Base. Hungary--U.S. troops are grumbling about a 
     pamphlet that advises them to tell any inquiring reporter 
     they have full confidence in their commanders, from President 
     Clinton on down.
       The pamphlet, titled ``Answers You Can Use,'' was prepared 
     by the Army's V Corps and has been distributed to all Army 
     troops in Bosnia to help them deal with pesky press 
     inquiries.
       One suggested answer is: ``U.S. forces are confident in our 
     trained and competent leaders. We have pride in our 
     leadership, from the president on down, and full trust in 
     their decision.''
       The problem is, not all of the soldiers feel that way.
       ``That one [answer] particularly got me,'' said a colonel 
     who asked not to be named.
       A female sergeant with the 4th Aviation Brigade, based at 
     Kaposvar Air Field, also took issue with the statement. ``I 
     voted for him [Mr. Clinton] last time, but not this time,'' 
     said the sergeant, who also declined to be named.
       Some soldiers said they were offended by the attempt to 
     guide their responses.
       The guidelines include a list of do's and don'ts for 
     speaking with reporters, including an admonition not to 
     discuss ``political or foreign policy matters . . . or give 
     opinions on hypothetical situations.''
       They also contain commonsense suggestions about not 
     revealing classified information or details of future plans 
     and operations or operational capabilities.
       Soldiers are advised not to say ``no comment'' but instead 
     to answer difficult questions by saying ``We don't comment on 
     future operations'' or ``I'm not qualified to answer that 
     question.''
       The troops also are told never to lie to reporters and not 
     to interfere with news gatherings.
       ``Be positive in your answers,'' the guide says. ``This is 
     your opportunity to tell the public what a great job you and 
     your unit are doing.''
       Other handy news bites suggested by the guide include the 
     following:
        ``We are trained, ready and fully prepared to 
     conduct peace operations.''
        ``We area not here to fight but we have the 
     capability, when required, to enforce the treaty and to 
     protect ourselves.''
        ``We are a disciplined and trained force. We 
     understand our mission and the rules of engagement.''
        ``U.S. forces have a long tradition of working 
     with the United Nations and NATO and are confident in our 
     abilities to work together in this mission.''
       Many soldiers privately expressed dislike of Mr. Clinton, 
     who avoided service in the military during the Vietnam War. 
     One soldier said he lost all respect for the president after 
     he learned about Mr. Clinton's efforts to avoid being 
     drafted.
       One lieutenant colonel confided that he disliked the 
     president but was careful not to express his opinions when 
     enlisted personnel were around.
       Capt. Mark Darden, a spokesman for the Army in Hungary, 
     referred questions about the pamphlet to Capt. Robert 
     Hastings, who took part in writing the guidelines. Capt. 
     Hastings did not return a telephone call seeking comment.
                                                                    ____


   Answer You Can Use--V Corps Media Reference Card--Guidelines for 
                    Dealing with Civilian News Media

       1. Throughout this operation, there will be excessive media 
     coverage of Army activities. Reporters will be present 
     everywhere in the area of operations. They are allowed to 
     record your actions and activities. Politely ask them to stay 
     out of your way, but you should not interfere with their news 
     gathering activities. If there is time and it doesn't 
     interfere with your mission, you may answer their questions 
     as long as you follow the guidelines on this card.
       2. Don't make ``off the record'' statements to reporters. 
     Assume that a reporter's recorder is always on. Anything you 
     say to reporters can be used in their reports.
       3. If a reporter comes to your unit and is not escorted by 
     a Public Affairs Officer or main escort, refer them to the 
     Joint Information Bureau. If they are escorted, you may 
     answer their questions, but inform your chain of command 
     about their presence immediately.
     
[[Page H1216]]

       4. You are not required to talk to the media. If you do, 
     you have the responsibility to protect classified information 
     and the security and privacy of your fellow soldiers. Do not 
     discuss anything outside your area of expertise and do not 
     speculate.
       5. You may not discuss future plans and operations, 
     political or foreign policy matters, operational 
     capabilities, or give opinions on hypothetical situations. 
     ``Stay in your lane.''
       6. Don't say ``no comment.'' Simply state ``we don't 
     comment on future operations,'' or ``I'm not qualified to 
     answer that question.''
       7. Never lie to the media. If you can't answer a question 
     or don't know the answer, say so. Suggest where, or with whom 
     the answer may be found.
       8. Be brief and concise in answering questions. Use simple 
     language, not military jargon or acronyms.
       9. Think before you speak. When asked a question, stop, 
     think, and then answer.
       10. If you accidentally say something inappropriate, say 
     so. Ask the reporter not to use your comment, and then report 
     the incident to your commander.
       11. Don't allow yourself to be badgered by the media. If 
     necessary, politely end the interview and contact your 
     commander or the PAO.
       12. If you observe a reporter recording or viewing 
     something classified, take immediate steps to protect the 
     information and report the incident to your commander. Under 
     no circumstances should you try to take notes, film or 
     equipment from a reporter. Get the reporter's name and 
     organization for your report.
       13. Be positive in your answers. This is your opportunity 
     to tell the public what a good job you and your unit are 
     doing.

                          ____________________