[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 143 (Wednesday, October 22, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10923-S10924]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO BOBBY MULLER
Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, on October 13, the Army Times had an
article by George C. Wilson entitled ``One Man's Fight for a Better
World.'' It is about a man I admire as much as anyone I have met in my
years in the Senate, and that is Bobby Muller, the head of the Vietnam
Veterans of America Foundation.
The article, written by George Wilson in his usual definitive and
exacting manner, speaks about Bobby probably far better than I could
and I am going to shortly ask to have the article printed in the
Record. The reason I want to do that--though I doubt that there are
many people in Washington who do not already know Bobby Muller, is
because I hope those who read the Congressional Record will see this.
He has been my inspiration and really my conscience on so many issues.
But the thing that I think sets him apart from so many others is the
fact that for well over a decade he has fought so hard to rid the world
of landmines. He has done it not only in this country, in working with
those of us who have sponsored and backed legislation to ban landmine
use by the United States, but he has done it worldwide. He founded the
International Campaign to Ban Landmines. He was its inspiration.
I talked with him early one morning a couple of weeks ago after
hearing that the Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the
International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which was shared with its
coordinator, Jody Williams of Putney, VT. I said to Bobby at that time
how proud he must be because he is the one who started this campaign,
and who hired Jody to coordinate it worldwide. Because of his vision
and the hard work of so many people, in Ottawa this December some 100
countries will sign a treaty banning landmines.
I am extremely proud of Bobby. I feel privileged to be his friend. I
have certainly been helped over the years by his advice and by his
conscience.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed
in the Record at this point.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Army Times, October 13, 1997]
One Man's Fight for a Better World
(By George C. Wilson)
``Oh my God! I'm hit! My girl. She'll kill me. I can't
believe I'm dying on this piece of ground.'' Those were the
last conscious thoughts of Marine 1st Lt. Bobby Muller as he
lay bleeding on top of the hill he just taken in Quantri
Province, Vietnam, in 1969. An enemy bullet had pierced this
chest tumbled through his lungs and severed his spinal cord.
He woke up in a military hospital, astonished he was still
among the living. ``I'm here!'' his mind silently screamed at
him in astonishment, ``I didn't die.''
Like any 24-year-old, especially a former athlete, Muller
inventoried his body while lying in the hospital bed. He
discovered he was paralyzed from the chest down. He would
walk again, much less run with this old teammates or dance
with that girl back home.
The rest of this story could have been like that of so many
other Vietnam veterans that you and I have known, and perhaps
helped get through the night. An all-consuming bitterness
that eats away at everything: jobs, marriages, self-respect.
Nothing matters any more. The Vietnam War, for thousands of
young men, trivialized everything after it.
Not so with Bobby Muller. He is one of those welcome,
shinning Vietnam success stories, which I want to tell here,
because it is both timely and timeless. Doesn't matter if you
agree with him or not. To everyone from President Clinton,
who has sought his counsel, to the secretaries who work for
him at the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, Bobby
Muller is a man committed to leaving the world better than he
found it.
Of late, Muller, from his wheelchair, has been the most
credible and powerful voice arguing for ridding the world of
anti-people land mines, which kill or maim somebody somewhere
every 22 minutes. Years ago, he railed against the Vietnam
War, calling it an ``atrocity'' and demanded that the
Veterans Administration stop treating the men who got hurt in
it like lepers. Many VA hospitals really were as bad as the
one portrayed in the movie ``Born on the Fourth of July''.
``People would call me a traitor,'' he told a television
audience, in recalling the reaction to his anti-war
statements in the 1970s. ``It's harder for me to repudiate
the war,'' the paraplegic told his detractors. ``Don't you
think I'd love to be able to wrap myself in the mantle of
being a hero? Don't you think I'd love to be able to say that
what happened to me was for a reason--it's a price you got to
pay for freedom? When I have to say what happened to me, what
happened to my friends, what happened to everybody over there
was for nothing and was a total waste, that's a bitter pill
to swallow.''
Muller did swallow the pill. It still burns in his gut. But
he has managed to use the burn to fuel his drive, not consume
it.
``The reality of that war has stayed with me every day,''
Muller has said. ``I know what it is to have people around me
die. I know what it is to hear the screams in the recovery
room. The most important thing for me in life is dealing with
those issues
[[Page S10924]]
that come out of war. And particularly the Vietnam War.''
Muller learned the hard way that he had to mobilize not
only himself, but also other Vietnam veterans before he could
take the new hills he set out to conquer. He was thrown out
of the Republican convention in 1972 for shouting at
President Nixon to stop the war. He needed comrades and soon
got them, founding the Vietnam Veterans of America in 1978.
He left that membership organization in 1980 to found and
head the more broadly involved Vietnam Veterans of America
Foundation. Nobody throws Bobby Muller out of anywhere
anymore.
White-haired but still passionate about his causes, the 52-
year-old Muller has led the battle against land mines from up
front. How would you like to be Clinton and--in refusing to
sign the treaty banning anti-personnel land mines--pit your
thin credibility and bureaucratic rhetoric against such
penetrating statements as these from Muller, who had a mine
blow up near him before he was shot in Vietnam:
Land mines, mostly our own, were ``the single leading cause
of casualties'' to U.S. service people in Vietnam. ``Land
mines are not a friend to the U.S. soldier. They are a threat
to the U.S. soldier. The Pentagon is institutionally
incapable of giving up a weapon.''
I don't fault the Joint Chiefs of Staff for fighting to
keep their weapons, including certain types of land mines.
That's their job. And it was ever thus. But it's the
president's job to stand up to the chiefs if the Mullers of
the world have the more persuasive case.
``I can't tolerate a breach with the Joint Chiefs,'' Muller
says Clinton told him. You can, and should, Mr. President.
You're our only commander in chief. And Bobby won't let you
forget it as he takes this new hill.
Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, there is much more I could say about
Bobby Muller, but I know what would happen if I went on longer. I would
hear from him and he would chastise me for praising him, because Bobby
always finds others to praise. I have probably risked that already, but
I want people to know that this is a man who has done so much for the
world and a man who should feel so honored by what he did to create the
International Campaign to Ban Landmines and by its receipt of the Nobel
Peace Prize.
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