[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 18 (Wednesday, February 12, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E224]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              RETIREMENT OF MAJ. GEN. RAYMOND PENDERGRASS

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. IKE SKELTON

                              of missouri

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 12, 1997

  Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, Raymond Pendergrass prepares to retire more 
than 48 years after first donning a uniform. A native of Boonesville, 
AR, he first joined the Armed Forces as a member of the Air Force 
Reserves in September, 1948, then joined his hometown Army National 
Guard unit, the 217th Medical Collecting Company, a litter bearer unit. 
The unit was called to active service in August 1950 and deployed to 
Korea, where General Pendergrass served with them through June 1952.
  By the time he moved to Missouri, General Pendergrass had been 
commissioned and served with signal and armor units. Locating in Rolla, 
MO, he joined the 1438th Engineer Company, and later would command the 
company.
  He moved through the ranks, and at the time of his retirement as a 
colonel in February, 1986 was deputy commander of the 35th Engineer 
Brigade. His time in the retired ranks lasted 7 years almost to the 
day. Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan recalled him to duty and he became 
Missouri's adjutant general in February 1993.
  Immediately General Pendergrass had to deal with difficult 
reorganization decisions facing the National Guard as a result of the 
post-cold war reductions being made to the Army and Air Forces. But in 
only 4 months a more acute challenge faced him, the great flood of 
1993.
  Beginning in July 1993 and for the next 2 months, General Pendergrass 
led the men and women of the Missouri National Guard in its largest 
State emergency mission ever as both the Missouri and Mississippi 
Rivers overran their banks and everything in front of them.
  General Pendergrass and the men and women of the Missouri National 
Guard worked with scores of State and Federal agencies to provide a 
response capability unequaled anywhere during that massive multi-State 
disaster.
  General Pendergrass applied his leadership skills to ensure that the 
forces of the Missouri National Guard were equally accessible for 
Federal missions. During his tenure as adjutant general, units and 
individuals from the Missouri National Guard have served with 
distinction from Germany to the Balkans in Operation Joint Endeavor, 
and earlier in Somalia, Haiti, and Rwanda. During the same period his 
units led our nation-building efforts in Latin America, building roads 
and schools and providing medical care to families in isolated rural 
areas from Belize to Panama.
  Through all his years of service to our Nation, Raymond Pendergrass 
has been more than a military leader, more than a man who knows that 
leading involves teaching. He has served as a gentlewoman willing to 
answer the call time after time, even returning from well-earned 
retirement. He is more than one of the last to remain in uniform with a 
Korean War combat patch on his right shoulder. He is a leader whose 
distinguished career is surely in the finest tradition of the American 
citizen soldier.

                          ____________________