[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.

                          ____________________